Album Review: Mark Chesnutt- Tradition Lives

I grew increasingly frustrated as I watched Mark Chesnutt perform with Lorrie Morgan and Joe Diffie at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in January.  My subsequent review was positive, but I longed to be transported to a proper Chesnutt concert at a honky-tonk in his home state of Texas.

Rather than gripping a notepad and a penlight, I wanted to hold a longneck in one hand and the waist of my dance partner in the other.  My daydream of careening across a dance floor to “Brother Jukebox” was heavenly. 

Tradition Lives, Chesnutt’s first album in six years, is filled with sturdy country songs about drinking, cheating and heartbreak.  “So You Can’t Hurt Me Anymore,” an ode about a breakup with booze, is my favorite track. 

The veteran traditionalist has no use for crossover pop moves or for the sort of arty innovations that made Sturgill Simpson a sensation among the NPR set.  Yet formalism doesn’t seem stodgy in the hands of Chesnutt.  I favor hip-hop, jazz, metal and R&B these days, but hardcore country like Tradition Lives will always sound like home to me.


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(Original image by There Stands the Glass.)