JD McPherson
Let the Good Times Roll
(Rounder Records, 2015)
A-
Someone, somewhere, at some point, gave JD McPherson a hot tub time machine. I’m not sure what era the slicked-back Tulsa drifter belongs to; he was just as likely sent here from the past as he is a modern day crusader reinventing the past. But time travel is a fuzzy little mechanism like that. Maybe he jacked the keys from H.G. Wells, slapped it with a coat of jet-black paint, some racing strips, and is crashing it through the space-time continuum like a beat-up Ford Mustang. JD’s no scientist sent hurdling back to take precise notes and carefully chronicle a bygone period of American rock ‘n’ roll history; he’s a Greaser renegade with a pack of cigarettes rolled into his sleeve, ready to leave his mark on the world, future, past, and anywhere between.
Maybe pure observation was his mission to start; 2012 breakout debut Signs & Signifiers was a blast, to be sure, one that won him famous fans like Benedict Cumberbatch, David Letterman, and Josh Homme. It was an album that found McPherson settling into a groove beside the earliest days of rockabilly that he draws from. There’s a place for that distilled revivalism, and plenty a talented musician is charming critics and filling seats doing just that. With Let the Good Times Roll, the Broken Arrow boy is having himself too much damn fun to give much of a shit about the butterfly effect of his actions, though. He’s a bull in a record shop, kicking up warped Buddy Holly LPs, deep stack Talking Heads B-sides, and dusty Fats Domino 7-inches and finding his liberty in the chaos.
Lead single “Bossy” is McPherson laying that all out on the line. No poker face. No slight of hand. He’s going all-in on this lovable, ragtag sound that merges all his disparate influences without the shoulder-angel tug of compartmentalizing any of them. And it’s devilishly excellent, the best road-trip jam of 2015, easing in with bluegrass plucking before a simmering hook — “You’re so bossy,” he drills in over and over again — that’s as addictive as a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.
It’s not one and done, though. “Head Over Heels” is going to sell a shit ton of Levi’s, and you’re going to like it. It bottles the cool that just about every American rock band is reaching for, lights it on fire, and hurls it against the wall to burn a hole to the adjoining hotel room just because it can. The song’s jittery post-punk guitars meet a timeless foil of prickly keys and a steady barrage of hand claps, and sideman and upright bassist Jimmy Sutton lays a thick, sexy bow over the whole package to tie it all together. The muscle car of a title track is another resounding statement, smooth-bodied with a rumbling engine. It fires cleanly, and if he’s not exactly reinventing the wheel here, at least he’s sanded it down to a perfect circle. “Everybody’s Talking ‘Bout the All-American” and “Mother of Lies” are similarly saucy fun.
Penned with Dan Auerbach (of The Black Keys notoriety), “Bridgebuilder” dips in the opposite direction. Soul-cracking and hair-drenched, he pleads to his balcony lover, eventually working their way to an abandoned dance floor to twirl the night away. The wavy reverb of “Precious” is similarly quaint and sweet, with the Oklahoma crooner finding green fields wherever he goes. He knows how to break hearts, and he knows how to win them. It’s just a matter of which mood he’s in when he’s traipsing across town, burning rubber with every turn.
As young as McPherson’s career is, few out there make a better case for 21st-century Elvis. So many are set on a life as a refined impersonator, championing the classics but spellbound by them. But pawns can’t be king, and with McPherson entirely disinterested with rank-and-file, he’s the only man dangerous enough to steal the crown.
