Terry Allen: Salivation, Sugar Hill, 1999
Another Texas treasure, Terry Allen has never enjoyed more than marginal sales.
Operating under the radar, he’s produced a body of work that rivals and often exceeds any of his contemporaries. Working in theatre, sculpture, film, painting and more, music is just one facet of a remarkable talent. He’s received three NEA grants and holds a Guggenheim Fellowship. A renaissance man few are aware of. He’s recorded for 25 years, but outside of a handful covers by the likes of Little Feat and Bobby Bare, he’s still an unknown.
Like Lyle Lovett, his songwriting straddles too many genres to fit a single category. Numerous forms co-exist, the most prominent being country, but it’s about as far from the country espoused by Garth and his ilk as one could imagine. The songs are real, at times ugly, and unlikely to find their way onto radio. Tellingly, when asked to list his favorite musicians, the first name up is Captain Beefheart, followed by Joe Ely, David Byrne (he’s worked with both) and Lou Reed.
A keen observer of the human condition, here he takes on some of the dodgier aspects of the Americanized Christianity, including TV Preachers, cultists and holly rollers. He’s described the theme of the disc as dealing with “the collision of the need to damn and the need not to be damned…It deals with human needs slamming up against spiritual needs.” The results aren’t likely the pass muster in many churches, but like last summer’s Kevin Smith film Dogma, it’s an interesting, thought provoking journey.
A witty, literate writer, for the most part Allen avoids cheap shots. Salivation will likely do nothing to change his status within the music industry, but for those wanting something interesting, thought provoking, this will do the trick.