Hey—a record released this century. When I saw Friddle in 2019, I thought of John Prine. His songs had depth and maturity. ‘There’s at least two ways a body can drown/getting tossed in the ocean and drinking in a dry town.’ My grandmother lived in a dry town, and my cousins talked about sneaking away on backroads to get a drink. It sounded like prohibition—you’d never learn to moderate your drinking. About going smoothly through life—’a man ain’t a swiss watch, all well-oiled and clean/he’s a lopsided pinball on a tilted machine.’ Reacting to the end of touring circuses: ‘How am I supposed to run away/now that they’ve taken the last place to go.’ He’s skeptical of love: ‘Am I a used car for parts/for sale by the owner.’ There’s a song about Samson and one about the South. In the liner notes Friddle apologizes for the lack of banjo on the record. Isn’t it said that a gentleman is someone who can play the banjo yet doesn’t?
I bet COVID set back Friddle’s career. Here’s hoping it gets back on track.
converselyspeaking 