Rodney Carrington Album: “Nut Sack [PA]”

Description :

Personnel: Rodney Carrington, Lisa Cochran (vocals); Michael Clark (acoustic & electric guitars); Sandy Williams, Mike Noble, Michael Spriggs (acoustic guitar); Pat Buchanan (electric guitar); Robby Turner (steel guitar); Larry Franklin (fiddle); Tony Harrell (strings); Jim Farrelly (flute, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone); Tom Meyer (clarinet, alto & tenor saxophones); Joey Tartell, Jeff Conrad (trumpet); Jared Rodin (trombone); <p>Bob Hoban, Steve Allee (piano); Frank Smith (acoustic bass); Dave Pomeroy (bass); Milton Sledge, Dane Clark (drums); Kevin Kaiser (percussion); The Ordinaires (background vocals). <p>Producers: Rodney Carrington, Tom Griswold, Steve Allee. <p>Recorded at Emerald Entertainment, Nashville, Tennessee; Saga Studios, Indianapolis, Indiana and The Victory Theatre, Evansville, Indiana. <p>Coming on like some kind of cross between the hick satire of Jeff Foxworthy and the country music parodies of Cledus T. Judd, Rodney Carrington connected to the down-home comedy audience in a big way with the not-so-subtly titled NUT SACK. The album is split evenly between live stand-up routines and music. On the stand-up half, Carrington tackles familiar subjects like marriage, work, and medicine, but with a southern twist. The musical numbers aren't parodies of existing songs a la Cledus, but highly comical original compositions. Ironically, the music backing Carrington's uproarious lyrics is more traditional honky-tonk than almost anything coming out of mainstream Nashville; many of these tracks could be outtakes from, say, an old Moe Bandy album. Lyrically, the songs are redolent of vintage Ray Stevens, or of the material Shel Silverstein wrote for Bobby Bare in the '70s.

I know Rodney is almost unheard of in the UK, and the sanitised version of his humour on the obscure ABC1 satellite channel really doesn't do him justice. Imagine Roy 'Chubby' Brown with more musical talent and without the spite towards the female gender, and you're not a million miles off Rodney Carrington.

Nut Sack isn't his best work (I'd give that accolate to "Hangin' with Rodney") but it's not far behind and it has a lot more to offer in the way of good original content than "Morning Wood." Rodney does cover some old ground (from his previous albums) but there's plenty of fresh content in the stand-up section.

One or two of the new songs stand as special, but again not on par with "Hangin'" Disappointments are the 'safe for radio' version of "It's too late" and the swing version of "A letter to my Penis." It may be his party-piece, but it's getting a little tired now, and the whole recent 'swing revival' thing never appealed to me at all.

This disc would be second on my list of recommendations to anyone building their own Rodney Carrington collection. If you enjoy crude humour but don't like it too over the top, then this album is for you.