Underneath

Description

Underneath is an album by the American singer, songwriter, and guitarist David Wilcox, released on Vanguard Records in 1999. The album was recorded by Gary Paczosa, Toby Seay, and Sabar Balo at L’Abbeville in Houma, Louisiana and at The Doghouse in Caleb, Tennessee; with Steve Buckingham producing. Mixed by Gary Paczosa.

Probably the most maddening description David Wilcox has endured since happening upon the folk scene in the mid-’80s is “how much he sings and plays like James Taylor.” Well, there’s no getting around it. If Sweet Baby James has a long-lost little bro, it’s Wilcox.

But soundalikes don’t pay the bills in this biz. Fortunately for Wilcox, he writes lyrical rings around Taylor, and most everybody else for that matter. His efforts on Underneath – his seventh album and first for general market roots label, Vanguard – keep Wilcox squarely at the front of the pack.

«Spirit Wind», driven primarily by Native American instrumental stylings, finds Wilcox discussing the nature of the flesh and the soul: “Is this a sign to change your mind/ Tempting you to trust?/ Yes, you’re bound to die, but you’re made to fly…/ To get to live this life and feel this time and place, amazing grace, the spirit wind is real.” And the barrelhouse blues of «Never Enough» and the plaintive «Home Within Your Heart» contain their fair share of Christian imagery, as well.

But the best song of the lot is «Sex and Music», and don’t let the title scare you. «Sex and Music» is a brilliant, half-spoken/half-sung poke at the emptiness of our sex-saturated society – and an insightful comparison of sex to music. To wit: “For how will you navigate better and worse with just numbers of people to count?/… You find yourself craving more numbers; it’s the sex-drug of rock’n’roll/ And it leads you to strange addictions like image and marketing spin/ You’re just trying to get them to like you, and how could that be such a sin?” Couldn’t have said it better myself. [Dave Urbanski, CCM, August 1999]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/underneath/712100505)

CD tracklist:

01. Underneath – 4:12
02. Never Enough – 3:03
03. Down Here – 5:53
04. Spirit Wind – 4:07
05. Prisoner Of War – 4:22
06. Hometown – 2:41
07. All My Life – 3:33
08. Guilty Either Way – 3:54
09. Leaving You – 4:08
10. Young Man Dies – 4:20
11. Slipping Through My Fist – 5:03
12. Home Within Your Heart – 3:44
13. Sex And Music – 5:36