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320 kbps | 128 MB | UL | TB
Although they played together as part of The Moonlighters back in 1977, and piano player Austin De Lone has guested on several of Bill Kirchen’s albums, variously laid down in Austin, Sausalito and London, Transatlanticana is the first time they’ve actually recorded as a duo. It’s been long overdue.
For those whose musical knowledge might not quite stretch back that far, Bill Kirchen and Austin De Lone were seminal figures in the early 70s. Bill Kirchen as a member of Western Swing country rock revivalists Commander Cody & The Lost Planet Airmen and, having relocated to London from New York, Austin De Lone was a co-founder of Eggs Over Easy, the band credited with launching the British pub rock explosion.
Their common musical pedigree fuels this hugely entertaining collection augmented by an assortment of backing musicians, among them former Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers bassist Paul Riley. It opens in lively style with a nod to the classic Merle Haggard sound on Hounds of Bakersfield. Keeping the honky tonk open with an old Commander Cody nugget, Wine, Wine Wine, Kirchen takes the lead, singing “I got my first tattoo on the very same day I first heard ‘Mama Tried’.” Austin De Lone’s first writing and vocal credit is on the chugging blues boogie Let’s Rock before hitting a rockabilly trail with a cover of Butch Hancock’s Oxblood, that not only features the man himself on backing vocals but also has Gurf Morlix on electric guitar.
