Five years after recording his debut album at the age of 64, Wenner continues to bloom with his third offering imbued with the spirit of Laurel Canyon.
Chris Wenner is something of an outlier in the music business having waited until he was 64 years old, and just retired as a commercial lawyer before recording his debut album “A New Born Man” (2020). Of course Wenner hadn’t just suddenly picked up a guitar, having built up a musical repertoire both as a soloist as well as with other renowned artists while continuing to pursue a successful career in law. His second album “Maywind” (2022), earned international attention with its European-flavoured AOR, while a chance meeting with producer Philipp Hoppen (aka Philsen), took Wenner back to the studio, where over the following two years he recorded the fourteen songs that would eventually become this, his third offering, “Not Old Enough”, just short of his 69th birthday.
On first listen one is immediately drawn to the subtle changes in the overall sound compared to Wenner’s sophomore release, with Philsen’s arrangements delivering a richer, warmer tapestry, thanks in the main to his analog production. Opening number ‘Too Bad’, in many ways epitomises the album’s ethos, both musically and lyrically, with its multi-layered vocals propelled by strong percussive pulses against a narrative peppered with sagacious lines from one who has drank many a glass from the well of life. In truth, the poetry can be a little simplistic at times, such as “If the closer you get the more your heart bleeds, it’s something that nobody really needs” or “You took my focus and stole my heart”, though you’re never left in any doubt over the sincerity of the message. Wenner’s vocal delivery, and to a certain degree songwriting style, draws comparison to that of Graham Nash, of which second number ‘Something’s Going On In The House’, and following number ‘Too Many People’, are good examples of worthwhile subject matter slightly diminished by over simplified melodies and occasional whimsical narratives.
However this is an album that, in parts, delivers over repeated listens, particularly where Wenner keeps the narrative personal, as found on ‘May You Always Shine’, and ‘Tic Tac Toe’, that both have more than a hint of Reg Mueross in the delivery, while ‘Mexicali Bro’, and ‘I Can Make My Life Rerun’, with their layered harmonies and atmospheric arrangements, embrace the early seventies Laurel Canyon spirit displaying echoes of C.S.N.Y. The title track is another solid number with its opening acoustic guitar riff building into a groove that helps create a subtle tension throughout, while the electric piano on ‘Sands Of Time’, gives a nod towards Steely Dan. More lush harmonies with a twelve-string guitar mark ‘Late For The Sunset’, as one of the album’s highlights before a reprise of the opening track, this time as a piano ballad, brings the album to a satisfactory conclusion.
It would be very easy to view Chris Wenner’s “Not Old Enough”, simply as an album by an artist fast approaching his seventieth year, working in a second language, arguably a second career, and be rather dismissive of it’s potential. However, that judgement would be wide of the mark, for though it wears its influences for all to witness, there’s plenty to enjoy, with at least a handful of songs that stand up to repeated listening, all wrapped in a warm and sympathetic production. Wenner may have arrived late to the party, but on the evidence of “Not Old Enough”, he still has plenty to offer as well as it being a reminder to the rest of us. “It’s never too late”.
