Search - Earl Pickens :: Country Music Jukebox

In 2004 Earl moved out to the country where he began recording at the home studio of local blues aficionado Kim Reichley. Recording late at night -mostly live takes of just Earl and guitar- an album began to take shape.

"Once I really got into country music I began to appreciate the tradition of the sad song that doesn't try to offer any solace; the songs that say 'she done left me, she ain't coming back, I can't blame her and that's just the way it is'. The songs on Country Music Jukebox are my contribution to that tradition. I wanted to make a record that offers little in the way of redemption, but gives you plenty of reasons to have yourself another beer.."

Indeed it seems the characters that inhabit this album have seen tough times. There is the woman obsessed with the past in "She's Been Starting to Notice How Everything Slowly Changes" and the frustrated singer longing for the "voice of an angel" in "If I Could Sing Like That".

"I really try to get inside the heads of the characters in my songs, not only when I'm writing, but when I'm performing." Pickens says. "When I sing "If I Could Sing Like That" I become that loser, that guy who wouldn't get off his ass to help her bring her bags out to the car when she was leaving him. I become that jerk who won't accept his share of the blame as she walks out of his life."

Local singer/songwriter Jessie Yamas added the finishing touch. Yamas' emotive harmony vocals complement the albums' sparse arrangements.

Country music is where Pickens feels he belongs; it's a genre that still holds respect for the songwriter. Earl pays homage to one of the great country songwriters, Hank Williams, on the album's closing track and namesake Country Music Jukebox. It is a song that finds some poor, sad sap propped up "on a stool in the back of some old honky tonk", broken hearted and alone, but still only a quarter away from the salvation of sweet, sad country music.