‘Lone Stars, crowded bars, fast women, and slow guitars’; that’s pretty much the job description for John Paycheck on ‘Lone Stars’ – a fast-paced, shuffly little slab of neo-trad country that’s laced with humour and proper musical pedigree. Paycheck is a self-confessed ‘nerdy high-tech redneck’, and what he’s aiming for – and delivering here – is a return to 90’s style fun country and western with toe-tappin’, foot-stampin’, whiskey-swillin’, country groove that people can dance to.
The son of a country music legend (and Grand Ole Opry member), part of Country’s ‘outlaw movement’ along with Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson, John Paycheck is proper country and western through and through; that comes across in the obvious enjoyment of ‘Lone Stars’, the Texas shuffle and lap steel slide guitar sit alongside the swing and the clear ‘lovin’ it’ grins that are evident across ‘Lone Stars’. It’s a cracker of a single, and frankly if this doesn’t make you want to tap your (cowboy-booted) foot then nothing will.
Check out ‘Lone Stars’ on Spotify; find out more about John Paycheck here.
Review by Alex Holmes