Big & Rich Comin' To Your City CD

Big & Rich: John Rich , Big Kenny .
Personnel: John Rich (acoustic guitar); Paul Worley, Adam Schoenfeld (electric guitar); Mike Johnson (steel guitar); Jonathan Yudkin (dobro, banjo, harp, mandolin, fiddle, cello, strings); Connie Ellisor, Karen Winkelmann, Carolyn Bailey, Zeneba Bowers, Gerald Greer, Denise Baker, Erin Hall, Chris Teal, Carl Gorodetzky, Pamela Sixfin, David Davidson , Alan Umstead, David Angell, Catherine Umstead, Cate Myer, Janet Askey (violin); Kathryn Plummer, Kris Wilkinson, Monisa Angell, Gary VanOsdale (viola); Felix Wang, John Catchings, Sarighani Reist (cello); Maxwell Abrams (saxophone); Mike Rojas (piano, Wurlitzer organ, keyboards, synthesizer); Howard Laravea (piano, synthesizer); Dennis Burnside (keyboards, synthesizer); Wayne Killius, Brian Barnett (drums); Samuel Bacco, Eric Darken, Ron Sorbo (percussion).
Audio Mixer: Clarke Schleicher.
Recording information: Blackbird Studios, Nashville, TN; Ocean Way Nashville; SONY-ATV Studio; Starstruck Studio.
Photographer: Kristin Barlowe.
Unknown Contributor Role: Nashville String Machine.
Arrangers: Paul Worley; Gretchen Wilson.
After the runaway success of Big & Rich's 2004 debut, HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR, the quirky Nashville duo was in serious demand, both producing and appearing on albums by numerous artists. Despite their busy itineraries, Big & Rich's second full-length, COMIN' TO YOUR CITY, doesn't disappoint, offering up more of their wild and wooly rock-tinged country antics.
A sonic fusion of Brooks & Dunn and Barenaked Ladies, John Rich and Big Kenny wear their whimsy like well-fitted cowboy hats, as is apparent on "The Freak Parade," the record's outrageous opener, and the following title track, which is sort of a 21st-century riff on Hank Snow's "I've Been Everywhere." Boasting great vocal harmonies, energetic production, and clever nods to various musical styles, COMIN' TO YOUR CITY is a worthy successor to HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR, and is sure to please the faithful while winning over even more Big & Rich converts.
At the end of a year where Big & Rich seemingly had a hand in every other record coming out of Nashville -- and when their past was dredged up in the form of Big Kenny's ignored 1999 album Live a Little -- the gonzo country duo unleashed Comin' to Your City, the highly anticipated follow-up to their surprise blockbuster 2004 debut, A Horse of a Different Color. Their omnipresence in 2005 illustrates just how thoroughly Big & Rich, along with their protégée Gretchen Wilson, changed the course of contemporary country in the middle of the decade, helping to usher in music that was bigger, funnier, rowdier, and looser than what was on country radio in the wake of Garth's retirement. Everybody wanted a piece of Big & Rich, including such mainstream divas as Faith Hill, and they had their own pet projects like inept country rapper Cowboy Troy, and they didn't turn down an opportunity to work, so they just flooded the charts. And while such success is a vindication in and of itself, it also raised the stakes for the duo's own record -- a challenge they embrace with their trademark goofball humor on Comin' to Your City. Opening with a perhaps inadvertent salute to Shel Silverstein on the careening "The Freak Parade," the album immediately delves into territory that's weirder than anything on the debut, and the duo continues to push its music to extremes for the rest of the record. This doesn't mean that this is all a freak show -- the stranger moments are stranger, often exhilaratingly so, but the ballads are slicker and the pop tunes are less apologetic than before. Since the gonzo rebel shtick was always an act put on by two Music City pros, this pursuit of the weird and the normal in equal measure benefits the album since they can pull off both attitudes with slick flair. And it doesn't get slicker than "I Pray for You," a slice of anthemic MOR pop that would sound by-the-books in the hands of anotheRolling Stone (No. 987, p.130) - 3.5 out of 5 stars - "...COMIN' TO YOUR CITY is as expert as it is exceptional."
Spin (p.106) - "'Never Mind Me,' the album's highlight, is a soft-rock ballad that takes cues from early Steely Dan, and 'I Pray For You' suggests Journey without the pomp." -- Grade: B