As mainstream country continues to becomes hollow and glitzy pop music about trucks and beers and dogs and girls (or boys) then this lead single from JP Harris’ new album ‘Sometimes dogs bark at nothing‘ is definitely alt-country. With a quavering vocal, strummed guitar and weep-weep-weeping pedal steel this is a classy track with lyrics you can’t forget “When I quit drinking / all my memories come back clear / you’ll find me weeping / and sipping off a bottle filled with tears / …./ when I quit drinking / I start thinking / of starting up again.” Harris’ voice has a lived in timbre which comes from his life credentials of travelling the USA, often alone, hitchhiking and hopping freight trains while making his living as a farm labourer, shepherd, woodsman, and carpenter. This is the real thing.
