"Tie me to the chair and lock the door/ Take my shoes and nail 'em to the floor"
Nothing short of an envelope stuffed full of crisp new payola $100 bills moves Lonesome, Onry and Mean like hearing a new recording from an unknown artist that causes insomnia to set in. Right now that album is Jim Mize by, you guessed it, Jim Mize (I could've said eponymous, but that's the most pompous who-cares adjective ever), on Mississippi roots label Big Legal Mess. The label also handles folks like Jimbo Mathus and John Paul Keith, who both just happen to support Mize on this nine-track Southern Springsteen-ish effort.
Mize is the anti-rock-star, a 58-year-old insurance adjuster from Little Rock, Ark., and if you've heard about him at all it's probably via his tune "Let's Go Runnin'," which was on Blue Mountain's 1995 album Dog Days. Mize has two other Big Legal Mess efforts, No Tell Motel (2000) and Release It to the Sky (2007).
On tunes as opposing as "Drunk Moon Falling" and "Need Me Some Jesus," Mize sings like an introvert with a knife at his throat, like a man whose spirit is being repossessed while his house is burning down. He opens with the warning "we sleepwalk into our dreams" on opening track "Rabbit Hole," and while he knows the rabbit hole is like a noir film treasure map with cryptic directions and that one is more likely to end up lost than found, he willingly crawls into the void on all-fours. Sounds pretty real to me.
"Is there a second chance?/ I don't think so/ With words, we bleed."
The album is an emotional tightrope-walk as Mize tries not to look down while he searches for balance somewhere between the tension of everyday hopes and dreams and the despondency of unforeseen downfalls, disappointments and disasters. We've all been there in one way or another.
Much like Lucinda Williams, Mize's cigarettes-and-whiskey voice and flat delivery are perfect for his introspective, frequently dark material. The segues can be brutal, as Mize shifts from willingly -- and perhaps foolishly -- jumping into the rabbit hole on the opening track to the barroom depths with "You want to find me follow the blood trail of my heart/ I'll be lifting spirits at the end of the bar" on second track "I Won't Come Back Again." No one said Mize was going to make this easy or simple. It likely hasn't been easy or simple for him, judging from these nine gripping tracks.
"Landscape in my mind keeps changing/ Working overtime." Again, we've all been there.
A terse, exacting writer, Mize can literally swerve all over the emotional map inside one verse, as he does on the been-there, done-that, would-do-it-again duet with Matty Crockett, "This Moment With You":
When your lips touched my lips it became this intoxicated kiss Well, I wish they remained the day after you
Yeah, Mize frequently finds himself in situations where "I'm in deep/The walls are steep." Mize's lyrical precision is on display in every song as he drops "Shazam" one-liners at every turn, like the touching observation, "A little incomplete/ But that's what makes you sweet."
Mize has suffered more than his share of personal tragedy, so without prying too deep or getting into specifics let's just suffice it to say that Jim Mize literally bleeds some of these songs of universal appeal. Give Jim Mize the artist credit for working his own feelings out in this public way where we become the beneficiaries of hard knowledge gained through his intense personal pain if we choose to listen closely and feel. When it's over, you'll probably want to count your blessings and push play again.
LOM caught up with Mize in Little Rock on his day off.
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