by Robert Dean
I don’t know much about Tyler Childers. What I do know about
him, is he’s downright haunting. Thanks to the venerable W.B. Walker’s Old Soul Radio Show, AKA the best country podcast out
there, I stumbled upon Tyler and I ain’t been right since. I know he’s from
somewhere between the hollers of Kentucky and the miasma of West Virginia. I
know he writes songs that come out of a shotgun like rock salt and nails. I
know he’s someone you need to hear.
Tyler Childers’ songs are stripped down and simple, but they
burn so real. So hot like a flashbulb, trying desperately the capture the truth
of a life lived hard. That’s what appeals to me about Tyler Childers: his
obsession with unearthing his skeletons, thus knocking the dirt off mine, too.
I have a religious devotion to folks who can take my demons and make them their
own, to give credence to what we may feel on the inside, yet broadcast
differently to everyone else. That’s the mark of a true artist: their ability
to lay a dagger into the heart with little effort, other than being themselves
and telling their story.
Nose on The Grindstone
aches with personal pain. It hits hard like a southern gothic by Flannery
O’Conner or Cormac McCarthy. It was my favorite song of 2016 with a bullet.
Having lost a cousin to pills, and family up in the Tennessee mountains causing
all kinds of trouble, it struck as true as an arrow can. Hearing the poetry of a
broken handed life isn’t just blue collar, it’s an element of humanity we know,
but we need to accept as gospel if only to admit we’re far from perfect, even
if we’re different.
You yearn for more of Tyler’s unease, but he’s a bastard
like that – you can’t buy any vinyl, you can’t find any cd’s. His stuff is
super hard to come by. He’s on YouTube. You can download a few tracks, but he’s
not as available as some, and it only makes his ghostly allure that much more
enticing. If there were any justice in this world, Tyler’s music would have
been a centerpiece of the show Justified.
Whitehouse Road is
another that just slays. So many moments of personal distress boiled down and
into a slurry that’s a bitter, yet powerful pill. Given the new climate in
America where we all hate one another, Tyler Childers’ time is now. He’s one of
those rare voices that lays a hand and offers a sense of solace and relatable
pain. When a lot of singers step into their boots, trying to find their voices,
most of the times, it comes off as obvious bullshit. Tyler Childers ain’t that
guy. If it came off any more genuine, he’d be named Ben Nichols or Frank Turner.
Like a snake handler, the faithful believes without moral restitution – we align
ourselves with a sense of wrongdoing, but righteousness by the fire below.
Those of us, who’ve got a little dirt, can sink our teeth into that kind of
steak, because it’s not tainted.
Do yourself a favor and get out and see him live, try to
grab whatever piece of music you can. If he releases a record this year, he’ll
be that guy we’re saying we knew when – just like we do with Sturgill Simpson, Jason Isbell, and Chris
Stapleton. Tyler Childers is next. You mark my words.
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