An existential journey through the former cowboy’s troubled times.
Redolent of The Byrds ‘Sweetheart of The Rodeo’, ‘Vita’ is the new release from Addison Lea Thompson on Cowpuncher Records, the album title giving a clue as to the subject-matter and the choice of label name taken from the artist’s occupation for several years. Leaving his home in Little Rock, Arkansas at an unusually tender age, Thompson had moved to the Rocky Mountains to fulfil his dream of becoming a cowboy. Stetsons, Wrangler jeans and boots may look fine on country singers but this is one man who actually wore them for work.
Produced, mixed and arranged by David Percefull, who also provides electric guitar, piano and Hammond organ, there’s some fine ensemble playing. Recorded in Thompson’s adopted home town of Wimberley, Texas, the Hill Country outside Austin attracts musicians, who flourish alongside the wines and peaches in those parts. Home to Slaid Cleaves and Ray Wylie Hubbard, it’s evidently a pretty chilled kind of place.
Still only 29, ‘Vita’ is Thompson’s sixth collection. It seems that while out on the open range, there was plenty to feed his imagination and time for much reflection on a troubled past. This is an existential album inspired by the wisdom gained on the back of a horse.
A spoken introduction outlines the concept behind the album – life itself. It’s an unusual but worthwhile prologue that leads into a sumptuous opening track, ‘Tabiona’, shimmering with waves of pedal steel from Geoff Queen, who features on every track. Tabiona is a tiny town in Utah where Thompson settled after moving west and if anything suggests those gorgeous landscapes, it’s this. Casey Johns on bass gives the song plenty of bottom end, something he’ll have ensured in his role as engineer alongside Ethan Lugbauer.
‘The Letter’ continues on from there. Having left home so young, Thompson inevitably experienced pangs of regret. It’s a message to his younger self, reassuring him that things will work out for the best.
It’s taken around ten years for the artist to try and rationalise his adolescence, and he says that he had never really felt closure on that period. ‘Dark Angel’ is semi-spoken and as Thompson describes, “the final nail in the coffin to leave such an angry place behind” and in ‘Better Days’, things begin to look up.
Relationships are not to the fore in these songs, which leaves those with his parents and significant others only hinted at but ‘Spectre’ deals with loss and the disappearance of a friend. ‘Den of Sin’ raises the inevitable matter of addiction, seen through a dive joint once frequented by the writer.
The second half of the record moves forward, ‘Don’t Look Back’ suggesting better times ahead. ‘Wasting Time’ covers Thompson’s early days as a musician while ‘Solid Ground’ has a double-time rhythm and light-touch pedal steel before the album closes with the full-on country song ‘Life Is Good’. Delivered in a whimsical manner and sounding like he’s packed a lot of living into his 29 years, the former cowboy recognises that he’s taken us on a journey through some dark times and wants to leave us on a note of optimism.
