The Comeback Album is the third offering from these Nashville musicians/ band leader/ producer/ journalist/ songwriters! The comeback just refers to a revisiting the studios to make an album after a couple of years touring in the US and Europe, and working on exciting projects like recording the children’s songs of Tom T. Hall with an interstellar cast of musicians! Maybe it’s a bit wild to call Eric and Peter country music’s answer to Simon and Garfunkel but their voices and talents have a distinctive chemistry that combine so well and this The Comeback Album is another testament to that.
A glorious mix of folk, acoustic blues, country and trad jazz, The Comeback Album features contributions from American luminaries such as Duanne Eddy, on Mad, a Tom. T Hall song, Lloyd Green on Ponzi Scheme, violinist Fats Kaplin on Boxcars, and a wonderful trad jazz clarinet from Rory Hoffman in Sailor. The songs, nine of which are from the pen of Eric and Peter, are catchy with beautifully crafted lyrics reflecting awkward and sometimes painful situations: trapped in relationships which don’t work, She can’t be herself, being away from special places and loved ones, Carolina, getting scammed by those you trusted, Ponzi Scheme, coping with life when Rain just falls. Irony, humour, empathy and a peculiar ability to paint pictures in music are all tools readily available to this talented duo.
The opening track, Ancient History, is a cleverly penned list of famous and infamous Americans often with an alias or alter ego, but sends the message that life is for living now and isn’t dependant on who we are or what we’ve done. This balance of good old fashioned common sense and not taking things too seriously is borne out throughout the songs and probably would be a fair appreciation of how Eric and Peter view life if their song writing is anything to go by.
For Eric Brace and Peter Cooper The Comeback Album is a veritable musical welcome home feast, albeit one that they prepared for themselves!
Janet M. Roe
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