The artist formerly known as Tim Scott McConnell sketches portraits of characters on the outside of life looking in.
“Outsiders” is the next step down a path that appears to be the right one for Tim Scott McConnell on his seventh album since assuming the nickname from his youth in L.A. This is his first backed by a band since he emerged from his base in the Norwegian woods with only his thickly-strung 12-string acoustic guitar played with a brass slide and a stomp box to accompany his weather-beaten voice. He plays a style termed gothic blues, developed when McConnell made the decision in 2004 to evolve as a guitarist and re-create his music into the dark, country blues tones that match the substance of his songs as well as the Ledfoot persona.
Born in 1958, McConnell grew up in the Pine and Palm recreational trailer park in Fort Myers, Florida, “My father was a boilermaker,” he related. “We moved about every six months.” He got the nickname while living in Los Angeles. “I had a 1959 Ford F100 pickup with street axles and a 1969 390hp engine with turbo mufflers and a racing stick. I drove fast … never changed the brakes though … they didn’t work so well,” implying that maybe it didn’t end well for the Ford pickup.
At age 17, his next move was out on his own to New York City, where he started touring with bands and in 1979 wound up in one called The Rockats. In the next ten years, he signed with his first label, recorded the song ‘Swear,’ which was a hit for Sheena Easton, signed with Geffen and made an album (“High Lonesome Sounds”), then with Smutty Smith and Chalo Quitana formed The Havalinas, recording two albums and supporting Bob Dylan on his “Oh Mercy” tour. His career received a boost when this Jersey rocker by the name of Springsteen heard and liked one of McConnell’s songs, recorded it as a B-side, included it on the “Blood Brothers” EP, then designated it as the title song for his 2014 album, “High Hopes.”
One of those strange little coincidences that occur from time to time happened during the recording of Springsteen’s album. Former Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello was brought in to substitute for Steven Van Zandt, who was occupied filming the TV series Lilyhammer in Norway, starring in the role of a mobster on the lam from his “family” in NYC. As we know, McConnell has settled in Norway and although there’s no evidence of him being on the lam, he did (unofficially) change his name to Ledfoot. Besides that, he tried acting and was cast in the Norwegian TV series Exit. His role was – you guessed it – a mobster.
Among all this trivia is where the outlines for characters were found that serve to convey life experiences into the nine songs on “Outsiders,” some appearing to be in part autobiographical. McConnell says that’s not necessarily so. “I don’t really analyze the way I write. I just do it. I’ve been writing over 50 years. It’s one of those necessary functions that keep me alive, like breathing or taking a piss.” Can we be sure he’s not mis-speaking the colloquial “taking the piss” to blur the origins of his narratives?
Let’s dip into those outsiders. Put on the headset, insert CD, push play and ….. “Dear mother forgive me for all that I’ve done, I know you’re ashamed of the son I’ve become,” are the first words you’ll hear. Got right to it, didn’t he? ‘Thunder and Rain’ rumbles along in the manner of Nick Cave singing one of the gunfighter and murder ballads that McConnell grew up listening to. Waiting for a lethal injection, the son asks to be absolved for all he has done. “When I look back on the way I was raised, whatever I am you’re at least half to blame.”
For many of those who believe life has not given them a fair shake, the culprit is usually identified as ‘Destiny,’ the next song, evoking one of Lou Reed’s transgressive tales. As it unfolds, another one of Ledfoot’s outsiders rattles off everything that has gone wrong: Getting laid off after calling his boss a bastard and living out of his car while he pleads with his kid’s mother to let him explain that things are going to get better one day. I know it’s foolish to dream, now that I’ve lost everything, still I intend to succeed, I just can’t help but believe in destiny.”
These are not your father’s Bob Seger songs. No beautiful losers are found among “the losers, outcasts, wannabes, small people with big dreams” that populate McConnell’s imagination. One takes a dirt nap and doesn’t wake up in either heaven or hell (‘Dead Is Dead’) while another stubbornly resists any change for the sake of a relationship (‘Turn Me Into You’). The sinner fallen from grace awaits a handshake from the devil (‘I Do Believe’). ‘The Old Brown Bar’ is a match for the one in the Emmy award-winning TV series Shameless, where Frank Gallagher (William H. Macy) ties one on with the regulars. In the Ledfoot song, you find the meth addict Skinny Jane, the tattooed dude on the corner stool shedding black tears, a fence named Willy Wise who’ll take requests for guns as easily as dropping quarters into the juke box.
His songs come at you with the glare of a reality so blinding you’d be compelled to pull down the visor as if you were driving West on a bright afternoon. Where did McConnell find such a muse? “I guess my first big songwriter influences were Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash and Hank Williams …. no bullshit honest songs.”
Is there hope for the hopeless? A fighting chance? The downtrodden characters of “Outsiders” are also “small people with big dreams,” who are described in a series of images that practically burst with the authenticity of someone who has seen it all and can’t seem to catch a break. Unfortunately, they are unwilling to accept that all those lottery tickets purchased might never produce even a metaphorical lucky number.
It makes you wonder if the four years McConnell spent incubating his Ledfoot alter ego were really an archetypal journey representing the quest for identity. Ultimately, where does the outsider go from here?
As expected, McConnell/Ledfoot offers only this cryptic response: “My back roads go everywhere.”
