I’ve been asked by Wavey Dave Howarth to participate in a 20 day music challenge about LPs that influenced my musical tastes enduringly.
One album per day for 20 days – Michael Bobby Bourke – if you can be bothered, go for it.
Day 4 – Jason & the Scorchers – Lost & Found
Dad LOVED country music. Why, I have no idea. A boy who was born at the start of World War II in Worcestshire, England, then came to Australia at 13 – it didn’t seem to make much sense. But he was into all that soppy proper American Heartland country stuff. I hated it. Maybe it was partly youthful rebellion – we’re DNA coded to dislike what our parents like, after all?
Then, when I was about 19, I heard Jason & the Scorchers. This was pure, red hot rock n’ roll, man – but it was country as well. It started to make sense to me. I never go a long time without listening to this album, or one of their other great albums, and slowly some of Dad’s country music started to make sense to me, starting with Johnny Cash, who I now love as well. JATS were like a country music gateway drug – but incendiary rock n’ roll as well!
This album never lets up for a moment: Last Time Around, the irrepresible White Lies with its hilarious music video, the still-oh-so-relatable Money Talks (“If money talks, I wish it’d speak to me, ‘cos I need the conversation, it’s plain to see”), the moving Blanket Of Sorrow and Shop It Around (another great music video), Lost Highway, Broken Whiskey Glass – they showed me that rock n’ roll doesn’t need to be three chord heavy rock all the time, that you can incorporate different influences – even from my Dad’s old country and western records!!! – and still rock. Love this album, love this band.