Playing off North America's regions, travel album delivers concept richly
Texas singer-songwriter Owen Temple has delivered one of my all-time favorite travel albums with "Dollars and Dimes," released last month on El Paisano Records.
Temple used the 1981 book The Nine Nations of North America as a template for his music. Author Joel Garreau contends that North America can be divided into nine regions, or "nations." He says borders between states are irrelevant and regions are better defined through economic and cultural identity.
It's a perfect soundtrack for an Independence Day weekend.
Chicago, for example, falls into Garreau's "The Foundry" region, which clusters industrial cities of the Great Lakes as well as Southern Ontario with Toronto as its hub. Detroit is the capital of "The Foundry."
Then there's "Ecotopia," Garreau's green region of Washington state, Oregon, Alaska south through British Columbia and California north of Santa Barbara. San Francisco is the capital of "Ecotopia."
Texas? It's always been into maverick thinking like this.
Last year Temple and his Texas producer-guitarist Gabe Rhodes (Billy Joe Shaver, etc.) rented a Subaru and embarked on a tour of the Midwest, Southeast and Northeast.
"There was something about hitting all those regions without coming home," said Temple, 32, a native of Kerrville, Texas. "We started trading ideas about where the cutoffs were. Some people argue that when you see a Waffle House you are in the South. When we saw numbers on the back of the cars we knew we were in NASCAR country."
The album's concept took a deeper turn when Temple mentioned The Nine Nations of North America, which was a reading tip from fellow Texas songwriter Brian Rung. "It's about hard times and is very relevant now," Temple said. "The book was fun, like, 'We're going to Ecotopia.' But I saw the author's bigger point, which is that states don't make much sense where changes happen. What's the difference between the Panhandle of Texas and Oklahoma? Nothing, unless you're talking about college football."
Spiritually, it can be argued the nine nations converge in Chicago.
The "Dollars and Dimes" dramatic cover art was shot from an airplane by Chicago photographer Jonathan Lurie.
"I was looking for something that looked like any city, but a special city," Temple said. "I was looking at aerial pictures on Flicker and [was] sure I was going to be charged like $4,000."
Turns out all Lurie asked was that Temple make a donation to the Children's Place Association to use the photo he calls "Gotham of the Midwest."
"That's why this has been an inspiring project," Temple said. "He's a Chicago native and now he's a friend."
Connections are always made in travel.
"The book did a good job of explaining cities at the edges," said Temple, who lived in Madison, Wis., in 2005-2006 while getting his master's in psychology at the University of Wisconsin. "There's definitely farming in Wisconsin, yet there's parts of Wisconsin that have more to do with the Great Lakes. Certain cities are intersections of these regions. Indiana, for example, has a southern Dixie thing, an industrial end on the north side and even a Heartland growing thing in the middle."
"Dollars and Dimes" features 11 songs delving into distinct regions of North America, running from Winnipeg to Memphis to Los Angeles.
Temple wrote "Broken Heart Land" with Indiana songwriter Jeff Burkhart, who relayed a story about a train trip he took through the dried up town of Eden, Ind. It's the jangly leadoff track on the record and begins with Temple's up close vocals: "How did your past get stuck in a pawn shop/Seems everything you owned is held in hock."
"Quiet Look" is a ballad about the permanency of place in a world of change. The chorus is adapted from William Carlos Williams' 1934 poem "The Revelation."
The album's title track is getting the most action on Americana radio -- which doesn't exist in Chicago. Co-written with Adam Carroll (and Temple harmonica player), the song is an ode to the sharecroppers who took the backroads from the Delta to secure jobs in Chicago, and the migrant workers and labor camps that built railroads and levees along the Mississippi River. They all worked for "Dollars and Dimes."
Temple explained, "This record is about regions or people in dire straits in these regions, trying to get their bills paid: whether it is a St. Louis prostitute [in 'City of the King'] or the guy in 'Black Diamond' trying to figure out how to get money to get out." A black diamond is a lower-valued dark diamond used in industry for drilling. Temple and Carroll spent time in Black Diamond, a small town in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies.
"I like songs that transport you," Temple said. "A good song has a setting. It's not just 'You and I and me' and words that don't mean anything unless you got something to anchor it to."
Temple's next "anchor" might be regional food.
"Last night I played in Oklahoma City and I was telling people how I had to figure out another concept album," Temple said. "Maybe I'll write songs about food. I'm kidding, but maybe not. You got the barbecue, which definitely has regionalism. There's people who argue that I-35 in Texas is the marker for barbecue. You get more of a dry rub barbecue on one side and more of a soft barbecue on the other."
"I like to find good fried chicken," he added, "like Gus's in Memphis."
Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken is near Beale Street, at 310 S. Front St. The cooked-to-order chicken is burnished brown and never greasy.
"It's not a breaded, floury chicken; it's fried skin," he said. "They soak their chicken in the skin for a long time in this spicy stuff."
It has the deep taste of an Owen Temple travel song.
Owen Temple's "Dollars and Dimes" is available through Owentemple.com.