Cherry Bombs 'The Notorious Cherry Bombs' album

Once upon a time, in a land far far from Music Row, Rodney Crowell put together a band to ignite the songs...

...he was writing that were setting fire to the careers of Waylon Jennings, Crystal Gayle, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Oak Ridge Boys and his personal Don Quixote Emmylou Harris -- as the Houston, Texas-born and -raised singer/songwriter served as the Sancho Panza rhythm guitar player in her ever Hot Band. Blowing up convention, jettisoning the rules, expanding the convergence between The Beatles and Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and the Rolling Stones, The Cherry Bombs were a ragtag band of musical rogues who knew how to cook on all four burners in the name of the songs, the thrill of the surge, the curve of a great hook.

The Cherry Bombs were an Elvis/Emmylou piano player named Tony Brown, a multi-instrumental angel-voiced refugee from Pure Prairie League and Byron Berline's posse answering to Vince Gill, a West Coast session ace electric player in the form of Richard Bennett, a steel player for Emmylou and a hit-writing barn-door swinging steel man named Hank DeVito, a John Denver/Neil Diamond/Elvis/Emmylou bass thumper called Emory Gordy, Jr. and a pounder on drums who was as First Call Session man as they get Larrie Londin, Jr. The Cherry Bombs were hired assassins, turning Rosanne Cash's first three records into a seismic shift in modern country music, making Rodney Crowell's own Warner Bros' records templates for what could be accomplished between beer joints and the arc of pop/rock/country music -- where real life and deep truths collide on a crash course with libido, good times and the recognition of the wreckage that is consequences.

The Cherry Bombs felt so good because they didn't think, they played with their hearts, their souls, their fingers, their flesh, their will to turn country music upside down. And it was a loose ragtag bunch of guys who balanced their talent and excellence with the will to drive while blind -- and if the combustion sometimes blew up, it was far more likely to explode into paroxysms of the best that music had to offer.

"I don't think any one of us ever thought about what it was -- beyond a good time," allows the Grammy-winning singer/songwriter behind latter day hits for Tim McGraw, George Strait and Lee Ann Womack with a quiet laugh. "It was what we did. It was friends and fellowship. It was songs and bars and guitars. It was just a lot of fun!"

But the trouble with moments, especially moments shot through with that kind of magic, is that they pass. Just evaporate in the morning light -- and they can never be recaptured again. But what a sowing field The Cherry Bombs was: Rodney Crowell grew up to be the first country artist to have 5 #1s from his platinum Diamonds & Dirt,;Vince Gill would win more Grammys and Country Music Association Awards than any artist ever; Tony Brown would be the Ahmet Ehrtegun of Nashville -- guiding the careers and shaping the music of Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, the Mavericks, George Strait, Trisha Yearwood, Allison Moorer; Richard Bennett would excavate the bottomy resonant guitar sound that would be Steve Earle's bedrock and become a cornerstone for Mark Knopfler's work; Hank DeVito would be a reknowned art photographer; Emory Gordy would go on to become such a successful producer -- for Patty Loveless, George Jones, Matraca Berg, Bill Monroe -- he'd retire from playing altogether and Larrie Londin would pass on from this life.

So when Rodney Crowell was asked to perform as part of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers annual 2002 Awards dinner where he was given the inaugural Creative Achievement Award in recognition of his willingness to explore the terrain of the human heart and the musical possibilities as an artist, producer and songwriter, he decided to go all the way back to the root: he reformed The Cherry Bombs for one night only.

But the other thing about magic is this: if it's real, you can't ever

really kill it.

Sure, Gordy demurred and Londin was gone. But for one night only -- with supplemental reinforcement from Londin's protTgT Eddie Bayers, Jr. on drums, Steve Winwood/Larry Carlton pulsepoint Michael Rhodes, journeyman keyboard man John Hobbs, who kicked off Haggard's aching "Mis'ry & Gin"and a silver-voiced girl singer who once paid many of the men on that stage, Emmylou Harris for

sparkle -- The Cherry Bombs rode fast and loose and hard. Rode through a room full of jaded industry-types, chair dancing and standing ovation tossing, with a handful of laughter and the thrill of making music with people they loved.

That night led to many long conversations over bottles of wine and old photos, memories and moments and songs. The thrill of recognizing there's a freedom you can have with the people who know you from way back, from the inside out, that lets you swing for the bleachers without even thinking.

And so in one of those moments, The Cherry Bombs were re-born. No plan. No schedule. No bar set or marketing mandate. Just the idea that it was too much fun to toss over. and the notion that they should what they have right now.

So, they wrote -- Rodney and Vince mining an especially rich vein of creativity. They rehearsed en masse and arranged, just about every one of them a producer in their own rite. They jammed some, laughed more. And they made a pact.

"Our pact was the minute it wasn't any fun, we'd pull the plug and go home," says Gill flatly.

"If it turned into something that wasn't creative and nonchalant, it was off," picks up Crowell without missing a beat, "because one false move and you're into inertia as opposed to momentum and with our collective experiences and history, if it became at all self-conscious, we'd be doing the wrong thing."

"That's a real luxury. one you never get," Gill continues. "But as a

result, everything wasn't life and death, can it get on the radio? how is this gonna play? Instead, we made music that felt good, and kinda pushed each other."

For ten days, they took over the big room at Oceanway. They set up Larrie Londin's drum kit -- the one with The Cherry Bombs original logo on the kick drum head -- in the middle of the room. They worked up 14 songs. They ran'em down in the morning. They cut 'em live after a couple times. They built on what they had. They overdubbed as little as possible. They sang as much as they could. And they laughed and talked and ate and pushed each other to be better.

From the loose jointed, horn augmented "Let It Roll," a striding honky tonk reminder that aiming up ain't the same thing as living it up, to the chilling tale of passionate crimes "Heart Of A Jealous Man," with its eerie instrumental underpinnings that're as haunted as they are taut, The Notorious Cherry Bombs celebrates the possibilities of modern country & western music. Whether

it's the undulating rhythm & blues inflections of the ardor-steeped "If I Ever Break Your Heart" -- where Crowell and Gill trade vocal lines, the sublimated lust-driven "Dangerous Curves" with its searing guitar lines and the barely there resistance of a man tempted to the not-quite-breaking point, the wham slam shuffle of "Road To Ruin," a jaunty field guide to losing it all with aplomb, or the breath-drawing beauty of "Making Memories Of Us," written with a trembling hand and easily one of Crowell's most touching vocals ever, the facility with which these compadres inhabit the breadth of material is enthralling.

"It kinda felt like a circle got completed," allows the Oklahoma-born Gill. "To re-discover how much fun you could have making music with old friends was very freeing. There's a confidence factor playing with guys you've known for so long, who you have so much respect for. And you can step outside yourself, what you normally do. I wrote 'Heart Of A Jealous Man' with Max D. (Barnes) a million years ago, but every time I brought it up for one of my records, Tony and I agreed it didn't quite fit. Here, we were free of all of that.

"It's a brotherhood of sorts, this band."

Indeed, the Everlyesque ease that The Notorious Cherry Bombs enjoys comes from more than a quarter of a century's worth of collective experience and individual accomplishment , which defines the closest thing Nashville may ever come to its own Travelling Wilburys . It's what allows for the revved-up preaching of one Reverend Tony "Gonna Sing-UH" Brown -- drawing on his own Pentecostal childhood revival roots -- or the Johnny Cash train-beat-driven "Oklahoma Dust," which defines the essence of Gill's rural soul to shine with such unfettered grace.

And if you wanna take it all the way out, there's the hard country, steel-drenched shuffle "It's Hard To Kiss The Lips At Night (That Chew Your Ass Out All Day Long)" equal parts ebullient send-up and extreme hillbilly sentiment. Easily one of the great country titles in years, it has fit seamlessly -- if a bit of a non-sequitur -- into Gill's solo shows; but rather than delivering a jolting shock, it's inciting cheers and standing ovations everywhere the heart-tugging man who's given us "When I Call Your Name," "I Still Believe In You," "Young Man's Town" and "Whenever You Come Around" performs.

"Some people think my music never really has appealed to men," Gill explains. "But when we play this, you can see people nudging each other in the audience. the knowing looks. the laughing. It goes both ways, of course. But it's just one of those things that's so funny. And when it's over, the men just roar -- I've never had a song connect like this one, not even 'When I Call Your Name' at it's peak. It's immediate, and it's big."

Still The Notorious Cherry Bombs wasn't recorded for the business of it, but the love of good friends playing songs that make each other smile. And maybe push each other a little bit past their safety zones. As Crowell says, "This is a creative brotherhood -- and because Vince and I have a bit of competitiveness, that raises the bar a little for him and me and everybody else.

"In a creative place, that can be a motivator -- especially when people have an intuition about everyone else. And making a record with Vince Gill, who is such a 3-point shooter, I think I bring out the artist aspect of him, challenge him to go to new places. He's such a vocalist, I think I have to really search for my natural voice, really dig deep -- and that makes me really think about performing, about striving to be honest.

"And beyond that, we remember that you can go in, play live, have fun -- and make a record that's about music as it goes down. Fun. It's something we all need more of. even as we're trying to top the last ballad, push the envelope, we can open up, play hard. It's the best of everything really."

And so it is. A long fuse, perhaps, but worth every bit of the powder.

Light it and listen.

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Cherry Bombs - The Notorious Cherry Bombs