I truly have a lot of albums that I've been itching to review, though I have truly loved being knee deep in themed playlists. Maybe it's because the variety of writing styles and different grooves that can be put in a 10, 12, or 15 song playlist. Well if you are looking for great writing and innovative mixes, how can you not look at the legend Susan Werner. Her recent album "Halfway to Heaven" has been popping up on many of my current playlists to a point now where this review will be the EIGHTH time she has been featured in the blog.
Another reason I picked this album is that Susan has been opening up to the stories behind her songs in her Facebook page and those insights have made me even more interested. She has put every song in her page yet, but I promise I'll keep this updated. If that wasn't enough, Sarah Morris also interviewed her on Adventures in Americana (my favorite Mid-West music source). Ok I'm not so late on posting this review, her album came out on Feb 9, 2024, so let's get to it.
1) Halfway to Houston
A fun upbeat break up song, and I could describe it better than Sarah
In the title song of your new album, “Halfway to Houston,” you do such an excellent job revealing just a bit of the story with each passing line, before solidly landing the gut punch at the very end of the song, with the “Folgers Instant” revelation. I’m calling it a gut punch both because I love good coffee, AND because the hook and the final line both hit me in that classic-country-songcraft-goodness way.
Susan puts coffee as a sub-theme early with "saw her note make your own damn coffee", and ends it with Folger's instant... ha.
2) Lake of Stars
Texas is big with big cities but you can get way out in the middle of nowhere with stars everywhere, Susan captures it in a very poppy country groove with great percussion.
3) Tiny Texans
Susan is at her finest when she uses her witty fun, and she's on it with this one.
i wish you fun and sun in Galveston and oh, those Marfa lights I wish you Barton Springs and all these things and reproductive rights
Sarah: It IS sad enough (says this coffee lover!). Another song off the new album, “Tiny Texans,” hit me melodically like a valentine, while the lyrics call out some of the very real political challenges/divide that…our whole country is experiencing, but perhaps Texas has been in the news for it a bit more? As a listener I was deeply moved, and as a writer I was in awe—how did Susan do that? Hold that both/and tension so well? Can you tell us about that song?
Susan: I’m a huge fan of Kurt Weill and Berthold Brecht, who wrote The Threepenny Opera and other theatrical works of Weimar and pre-WWII Germany. They often juxtaposed the cheerful with the anything-but—it’s a style probably best summed up in the United States by Kander & Ebb’s score for the musical Cabaret. The idea is to set the cheerful next to the dreadful, and the juxtaposition of those things is what gives the moment its impact. Seemed like the right way to speak to this weird moment. Current Texas politics feature some absolutely breathtakingly awful policies. Having family (including toddlers) growing up in Texas, I hope to god the state changes for the better.
YES this one has a great video with illustrations by Sara Hickman, a Texan too.
Ok one more live one... this one is for my wife, she thinks Radoslav is so RAD so to speak.
4) For the Love of Man
Here's a song I ignored a little until I read Susan's FB post:
Here’s the backstory to Track 4 on Halfway To Houston, For The Love of Men:
Turns out this track has been a bit of a sleeper on this record. It’s the tune, along with Jalapeño Cornbread (Track Ten) that people ask about after concerts this spring.
It’s a pretty subtle tune, laying out the bread crumbs rather than stating anything outright. Sometimes the oblique reference is more powerful than the sledgehammer, ya know?
In some parts of the country you’ll hear people say, “For the love of men” instead of “For the love of God,” which is, to some folks, swearing. Felt to me like the right anchor for this narrative.
As to the details of the song, theyre mostly (but not entirely) fiction. There’s an old saying, “Texas has two seasons, football and spring football” - and writing the Texas album is what called this song forth.
As a football fan myself, this song does give me goosebumps, the Daddy here is a real A-hole and yes there are too many of those in this world.
5) Welcome to Texas
Welcome to Texas "We got everything; including trucks with balls" Now how is this NOT a Texas tourism song? Lately I've been watching a lot of the early seasons of "Young Sheldon" and find this perfect setting for the show and I'll chuckle more at the Texas references. Here's Susan's backstory from FB
Good morning, friends, from Fort Worth. and yes, it’s 2024 but it remains true: if you tell someone here you’re new to the state, they’re quite likely to say, “Well, welcome!” or “Welcome to Texas!” I’m not sure this is true of all populations and all locations but it’s happened to me and I hear it said often enough to know it’s still a thing.
as I got to know Texas better in the last year I started to think: what if Texans just gave u the whole file right up front? like, a Welcome Packet: here’s everything u need to know.
I first saw Southpaw Jones at the Kerrvillle Folk Fest and LOVED his writing. As i’m not from Texas, i had to get some bona fide locals in on these tunes, they know it all way better than me! big fun writing this with him, and he joins me onstage tonight in Austin at the 04 Center to sing this tune and some of his own.
shout out to producers Mike (SloMo) Brenner and John Anthony, and to pedal steel wizard Jim Cohen for cooking up this track so nice.
enjoy! and, you’re “Welcome!” -
sw
6) Outside Billy Bob's (Drunk Girl)
I just love this song with it's hint of accordion, but you can probably tell I love the whole album. Again the storytelling gets me every time and here's where it came from:
Here’s the backstory to track 6 on the album Halfway To Houston, Outside Billy Bob’s:
In February 2023 I was passing through Fort Worth and stopped in at Billy Bob’s, which bills itself as the World’s Largest Honky Tonk. It’s a must see for anybody who wants to experience a Texas tradition; a huge dance hall with live music and couples two-stepping (that’s a dance, not polyamory) in boots and hats and jeans. There’s lots of men standing around, drinking longneck beers, checking out the women, and there are lots of women hoping to get checked out and asked to dance. This dynamic isn’t quite as strict as it used to be, but the default is still guys asking girls to dance, you know the drill.
There’s a lot of bar stations in Billy Bob’s and a lot of booze being consumed, so it wasn’t a total surprise on my way out the door to see a young woman beneath a streetlight, vomiting. She wasn’t alone, she had a friend with her who was looking out for her as best she could (not clear the friend was feeling 100% well in that moment, either).
Over the course of about twenty minutes, I saw this young woman begin to collect herself. She finally stood up, her friend put an arm around her and they walked up over the hill into the parking lot. That twenty minutes was enough to start to assemble this song.
Addendum: This past January I went to Neon Boots in Houston, which is an LGBTQ welcoming dance hall and an entirely different vibe. Yes gay white folks dancing, but also gays of color AND straight couples of color, and that was a revelation to me. I didn’t see many (or maybe any) people of color at Billy Bob’s, which made me wonder: maybe places welcoming of one kind of difference from the dominant culture offer a welcome to many kinds of difference? It was remarkable, and had I gone there while writing this record I suspect I’d have written a very different song.
7) Sisters (featuring Tish Hinojosa)
I featured this in my Abuse Playlist because of the bad men reference, but easily could be in my Immigrant playlist too. (BTW it is Tish's fifth reference in the blog) Here is Susan's insight:
The song “Sisters” came about after a visit to a vista point in the Franklin Mountains above El Paso. From this spot, known as the “El Paso Star,” you can see El Paso and Juarez, back to back, El Paso to the north and Juarez to the south. The cities look different in architecture and layout, but they share the Rio Grande and an international border (demarcated on the U.S. side by a wall). It came to me immediately how these “sister cities” really are sisters, going through life side by side and interdependent, one with the other.
Legendary artist Tish Hinojosa signed on right away to write this song with me, and her viewpoint filled out and polished up the lyrics beautifully. Her guest vocal here is one of the highlights of the entire record for me.
Shout out to producer John Anthony, who brought extra love and feeling to this track.
Enjoy!
SW
8) Corpus
This song starts with a strong acoustic like Susan's going to sing you a song around a campfire. Now Corpus, here's a song you should promote; it makes me want to stop there.
She describes it :
You might not have given Corpus Christi, Texas, much thought. It’s quite possible you’ve never been there. I hadn’t, until some of my family moved there in 2022.
It’s my impression Corpus gets overlooked even within Texas itself. It isn’t rich and glamorous like Dallas or Houston, and it doesn’t have the casual hipness of Fort Worth or Austin. But when I went there, I was surprised by what it DID have. With that, I’ll let the song sing for itself.
sw
Ps. The first line of the chorus is a nod to a Jimmie Dale Gilmore tune: “Have you ever seen Dallas from a DC9 at night?” Love that Jimmie Dale.
9) Should've Followed Through
Susan has earned her stripes traveling this country, but's made many stops in Texas along the way. This song is filled with regrets that shows up in all 50 states.
10) Jalapeno Cornbread
I want to taste this, maybe I'll try it this summer with fresh peppers from the garden. The song is a gentle story that you hang on every word.
Susan shared this and the recipe:
The song JALAPENO CORNBREAD, track ten on the new record, has been so well received i thought some of you might like to learn a bit more about it.
the lyrics describe one of my favorite foods as whipped up by my great friend, the painter ANN WORTHING, originally from Wharton Texas (now Chicago). I'm guessing there's more than a few of you who might like to try to bake this at home, using her recipe. since she's a visual artist, even the recipe itself is delicious to look at. Print out the recipe PDF here and, as the song says, dont forget the jalapenos. (i'll point to a few of Ann's paintings in the comments below, and yes, i'm a happy owner of her work)
11) Tiny Texans (full band Intro)
Now fade out with a gorgeous pedal steel and a pony trot percussion.
Now I waited to tell or remind you I've met Susan twice at the Great River Folk Fest and one time it felt like she was singing in my lap in an evening Kerrville Folk Fest showcase at FARM. She is a treat that I might see again at Mile of Music in August 2024. I'm in awe of her, maybe just a little intimated too; but she is one of those friendly people that you need to meet and buy her stuff to take home.
Next steps:
- Stop over to the Review page to my other most spinned and loved albums.
- Browse the rest of the blogs by stopping at this "Theme Page."
- Enjoy Tune Tuesday which brings you one song from a past blog post.
- See what other post have been most popular recently with our Stats Page.
- Find out who in the world thinks he has the authority to write this blog in the About.
- Let me answer why you won't find the playlists on Spotify here.
- Finally, the Mission page explains why there is no advertising cluttering the page.
If you use Facebook, we have a page that will help you remember to read the next post.
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