Lonesome Onry and Mean: Delbert McClinton Should Go Honky-Tonkin' More Often

William Michael Smith August 13, 2009 2:50PM

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LOM has been listening to Delbert McClinton's new album Acquired Taste (New West), which hits stores next Tuesday, quite a bit lately. We've always been a fan of Delbert's and consider him to be one of the leading proponents of what we consider Texas music. Much like Doug Sahm, the Fort Worth native has always had blues, country and rock mixed up in the proper Texas proportions, and for us, that's Texas music.

LOM will never forget the first time we heard McClinton's album Victim of Life's Circumstances. By 1975, Austin was just crawling with hippies in cowboy hats and pearl-snap shirts. But McClinton never fit that mold, and Victim pretty much put the nail in the coffin as far as our being part of the Cosmic Cowboy music world. There just wasn't - and isn't - a false note on that album, and it was Texas to the bone. It was, in fact, roadhouse music, and it was no fluke that one of the songs was titled "Honky Tonkin' (Guess I Done Me Some)."

LOM hasn't been a particularly big fan of McClinton's more recent work, but hearing Acquired Taste for the first time, we were stunned by the third track, a stone-cold honky-tonk song,

"Can't Nobody Say I Didn't Try."

It's been on repeat in our CD player and our mind ever since we heard it.

It's the only country song on the album, but it got LOM to wondering why McClinton has never done an entire album of similar material. We suppose after so many years in the business, he has enough sense to know that honky-tonk is never going to be a huge market, but after hearing "Can't Nobody," we still wish he'd just do it anyhow.

Just give the track a listen and tell us you don't think he could pull it off. The guy's as honky-tonk as George Jones.