DAVE CARTER & TRACY GRAMMER: Little Blue Egg
DAVE CARTER & TRACY GRAMMER
Little Blue Egg
Red House 251
If you encounter a list of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century and Dave Carterās name not on it, walk away. Carter (1952-2002) was raised by an evangelical mother, rejected doctrinaire Christianity, but remained a seeker and a mystic for his entire life. He released three albums with Tracy Grammer and, though it would be inaccurate to call Little Blue Egg a fourth, this eleven-track cobbling of home recordings and demo tapes will certainly thrill Carter/Grammer fans. Several of the tracks feel homespun; others such as āCross of Jesusā have raw edges that were tacked down in latter concert performances. But who cares about polished production when one man with one pen can describe a truckerās life like this: āGod is my witness, pokerās my game/Whiskeyās my poison, forgottenās my name/And itās biscuits when Iām hungry and itās diesel when Iām dry/And itās 18 wheels of lonesome for the tears you cry.ā The songs traverse themes for which Carter won renown: the open spaces of the land and the heart, love with both sentimentality and hard knocks intact, mythology, redneck preachers, and the fragility of life. Hearing these songs will make you weep for the joy of hearing them, and quake from the injustice that such a talent was taken away too soon.
ā Rob Weir