This album had me at hello.
I lived near a Tower Records when I was in the Air Force, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that the store was my second home. I knew the clerks by name and I had my own parking spot. Why I never put in an application to work there I'll never know. But I could go there on a rainy afternoon (like today) after a hard day on base and put on the headphones at the listening station out front of the store, and just absorb hours of music.
That's where I discovered Mr. Mark Knopfler. I vaguely knew the voice from my Dad's Dire Straights' tape that he would listen to over and over again in his car (you know the album I'm talking about, the one with "Walk Of Life") but I never really gave his solo work any thought.
But within the first minute of opening track "What It Is" I was hooked. That warm, English voice and those guitar tones over wordplay that name checked nursery rhymes and had the great line "people curse the government and shovel hot food down", a line that still convicts me today.
The next song and title track, a duet with Mr. James Taylor that tells the story of the Mason Dixon Line (think back hard to Junior year American History) and made me realize that storytelling on a history level could be done in all sorts of ways. Forth track "Baloney Again" tells the tails of a Civil Rights era traveling gospel group that loved singing about Jesus and had to sleep in their cars and eat baloney if no restaurants or hotels that allowed black folks to stay there were available. This song song still convicts me as well.
And that is just the first few songs. This album is loaded with great moments that stir the imagination while warming the soul.
Neat trick!
5 stars
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