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Buckle up, because this album is an adventure in discovery. First off, it might be the only album released this century without at least one website address on it. But there aren’t any. And if you look at www.donniefritts.com, well, be prepared and don’t do it before lunch. (It’s a different Donnie Fritts, by the way.) Musically, this Fritts is one of the Southern songwriters you can count on one hand who helped spread the sound outward from the magical Muscle Shoals area of Alabama starting in the mid-‘60s. He wrote for dozens of singers, worked for years with Kris Kristofferson and helped establish a whole new style of blue-eyed soul. His voice is beyond down home, coming from somewhere out in the woods where the electrical lines don’t run and indoor plumbing is a far-off dream. These dozen songs have the spirit of someone who’s just glad to be alive. It turns out Fritts had a kidney transplant seven years ago, and lived to tell about it. In fact, let’s have him do just that: “I felt fantastic because of the amazing drugs the staff was giving me.” Go ahead. He sings with huge teardrops in his voice, and the band is funkier than a bucket of week-old Church’s fried chicken. There are several songs, including “Across the Pontchartrain” and “Robin in the Rain” that exist in the twilight time of sadness too painful to talk about. Others are the observations of a man who has seen just about everything, and has no reservations telling the tales. Thankfully, the album ends on a high-stepping strut of a song called “Nothing Stays the Same (Except the Changes),” showing how Southerners can lose the Big War, battle long odds at survival and watch their coastlines get slammed again and again, and still come out laughing at life’s absurdities. Donnie Fritts is the man at the front of the parade with the biggest smile of all.
