Author: Rodney Atkins

Format: CD

Release Date: 02-04-2009

Details: Amazon.ca East Tennessee singer-songwriter Rodney Atkins scored a chart-topper with the title track of this second release, reframing the Irish drinking toast ("May you be in heaven five minutes before the devil knows you're dead") in a modern context and tying it all up in a Celtic/banjo wrapping fit for Keith Urban. It's a solid effort, and performed with unusual aplomb for a newcomer. But as the rest of the album shows, Atkins seems torn between being a thoughtful, poetic craftsman ("Angel's Hands," "Invisibly Shaken," "A Man on a Tractor") and a hero for redneck simpletons. On the opening "These Are My People," he works the family-values-and-small-town stereotypes to death, continuing with "About the South," a Charlie-Daniels-as-God number on which he's backed by an irritating group of chorines that sound suspiciously like the Hee Haw Hunnies. Which path will Atkins ultimately choose, NPR or Wal-Mart? His second single, "Watching You"--a doing-everything-like-Daddy paean--probably tells the tale. --Alanna Nash Product Description Rodney Atkins had delivered a world-class release with Honesty back in 2003, but even then he was searching for something that would bring his music home to his heart and his memory and his love for the people and the values that guide his life. That's what makes his new project different. The voice is still there, deep and strong, a little rough to the touch, like a fence in a field, but also tender and simmering with quiet feeling. It's a voice that's lived a bit since we last heard it. That difference can be heard on the new album's first single, 'If You're Going Through Hell (Before The Devil Even Knows)'. As if to tighten the ties that bind this music to his world, he built a simple studio at home, where he laid down all the vocals between doing chores and spending time with his family. This could be the most inexpensive record Curb has ever done, he says, because there was no engineer and no studio clock ticking away. I'd just go in whenever I felt like singing and it made the process for me that much better. Rodney understands that country music, the way it ought to be played, isn't just about life it is life. It's about what people face every day. That's what they want to hear in country music. And that's what I draw on, what brought me here, every time I sing.

UPC: 715187894525

EAN: 0715187894525

Languages: English

Binding: Audio CD

Item Condition: New