There's nothing all that unusual about an aging rocker -- particularly one who's survived outside the mainstream -- trying his hand at country music, but the believability of Graham Parker's foray into the genre is mighty uncommon. That's due, in large part, to Parker's recognition that you needn't become a
Hee Haw–style caricature in order to crank out legit country music. "Anything for a Laugh," which opens the 11-song collection, uses a healthy dose of barroom piano to push along a wizened road tale that calls to mind a Buck Owens–written "Tears of a Clown." On the flip side, "Cruel Lips," which features some crackling counterpoint vocals from
Lucinda Williams, evokes both laughs and winces with its kiss-off message. While steel guitars and zither figure prominently in the mix of most songs, Parker does allow the odd glimpse of his usual angry not-so-young man prickliness -- it rears up most significantly on the sneering "Nation of Shopkeepers." And as if to prove he's always had a toe dipped in the genre's gene pool, Parker closes
Your Country by revamping one of his early classics, retrofitting "Crawling from the Wreckage (Revisited)" with a pumping Sun Studios rhythm and a delivery that's more wounded than ferocious. To Parker's credit, this sounds less like an experiment than a logical next step in an always intriguing career.
