Unspun Heroes vinyl record label exhumes a fascinating early release by worthy Tennessee troubadour.
“Drink Ring Jesus” is the second album, released in 2006, by Nashville-based Tennessean Stephen Simmons. On its 19th anniversary, it is being re-released in the UK on the adventurous Unspun Heroes label on 140g vinyl. Unspun Heroes started in Spring 2023 on a musical mission to release vinyl versions of music deserving, in their opinion, of wider attention. Their light has shone upon a very interesting album in “Drink Ring Jesus”.
Simmons was born in the rural town of Woodbury, Tennessee, into a working-class family (mother a schoolteacher and father a factory worker) and brought up with the teachings of the Church of Christ. As he grew older, and developing as a singer-songwriter, he began to challenge these teachings and started to explore the dark side of life and religion, with stories of saints and sinners, and piety and faith and redemption – “When you’re raised in the Church of Christ, if you’re sensitive at all, it leaves you with a lot to struggle with”. Over the years, since his first album “Last Call” in 2004, he has released eleven albums of varied hue (some with minimalist backing others with a fuller band of session players or his own band) and in 2025 is about to release his 12th, “Hunch”. He has toured extensively in the US and Europe and can be affectionately called a journeyman musician (‘road dog’ in his words), as, despite having a loyal fan base, he has not scored significant commercial success.
His first album used a modest group of session men, but on “Drink Ring Jesus” he ditched them for just his guitar, on which he is more than proficient, occasional harmonica (himself) and his raspy somewhat ‘strangled’ yet very effective voice. He’s been compared to a number of other artists – on the album under review he is not unlike Dylan, but the most comparisons have been Johnny Cash and Ryan Adams or early Steve Earle. He’s also not unlike Arlo McKinley. You can see why this album was chosen by Unspun Heroes – it is full of some excellent songwriting and confessional storytelling with a strong focus on the paradox of love and hate, or sin and redemption, or faith and scepticism, all a consequence of Simmons’ life experiences.
Simmons’ first two albums came as a response to 9/11 and its aftermath, and speaks to living in a country at odds with itself and in the middle of considerable political and social upheaval, driven by his challenged religious upbringing. Take ‘The Devil’s Work is Never Done’ with its cutting lyrics “The famous and the powerful / Those deceitful wagers of war / And all those goddamned politicians / the very ones that evoke your name just for a damn vote / Lord”. Or the title track that leads off the album, with its catchy acoustic guitar lick. The title comes from a drinking session during which Simmons was listening to TV talking heads sounding off about aspects of terrorism and war and the face of Jesus seemed to appear in a ring at the bottom of his glass of whiskey. This image appears as the album cover. “Carpenter Skills” is even slower than most with its happy serendipity that both his grandfather (who was also a preacher) and Jesus were carpenters and both could do things with their hands as well as their voice – ‘ some of us spend our entire lives trying to fix things, some of us do it with our hands, some with hammers, some with songs’. There’s some very Dylanesque harmonica on this track. “You give us” is another track with coincidences, in Simmons’ opinion. He was writing these songs in his late twenties /early thirties, and he found thirty-three to be a transformational year as he struggled with his religion, which he was losing at the same age that Jesus was on the cross.
It may sound as if this album is very preachy, with overly religious overtones, but Simmons writes these intensely personal songs in such a stream-of-consciousness way that a number of different thoughts and feelings permeate every song, be they by way of a sermon or a confession. You might also think you might tire of such a rather one-paced album, but Dylan did the same in his early albums. And whilst the songs might not reach Dylan level, Simmons has a more powerful and often hard-hitting voice, his guitar and harmonica work are never less than interesting, and his songs require time to absorb. “His Time’” for example, was written after he gave up his full-time job to concentrate on singing and reflects on the time he now has for himself, yet acknowledging that all time is borrowed – “I’m thirty years old now and I never saw it coming / I never thought that I would live to see the day / When I’d sit on my porch and watch the seasons slowly changing / I’m thirteen years old again. I guess that nothing’s changed”. The album ends with “Long Way to Go”, another track about redemption with the exhortation “But oh oh / Don’t give up on my soul / Oh oh / Just got a long way to go”.
The sound from this new vinyl pressing is excellent, the guitar and harmonica as clear as a bell. The lyrics are constantly interesting. No wonder Unspun Heroes felt that this album deserved a new outing – it certainly does. An album to kickstart your research into Stephen Simmons’ music!
Thanks Fred. I really enjoyed this article and your perspective of it. Once again, another artist who is criminally overlooked. I am lucky enough to own all his releases and he is one of my all time favourite musicians. He just needs more people to wake up to his talents!