Bill Kirchen's 'Hammer Of The Honky-tonk Gods'

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From his twanging tribute to the Fender Telecaster guitar that he plays (and which he notes "was born at the junction of form and function") to the soulful closing of Arthur Alexander's "If It's Really Got To Be This Way, " Bill Kirchen covers a wide swatch of musical terrain on his forthcoming album, Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods, slated for January 30 release in the U.S.The album is his first for Proper American Recordings, which also gave the world recent recordings by Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham, the Hacienda Brothers, Bobby Purify and Andy Fairweather Low.

Best known for his trademark big-rig guitar on the Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen single "Hot Rod Lincoln, " which went Top 10 in 1972, Kirchen has amassed a respectable catalog of seven critically acclaimed albums that helped crystallize the format now known as Americana (pioneered by acts like Commander Cody some 35 years ago).

On the new album, Kirchen reunites with friends who have accompanied him on recent albums. Nick Lowe, who refers to Kirchen as "a devastating culmination of elegant and funky, " signs on as bassist and backing vocalist. Robert Trehern plays drums; Geraint Watkins and Austin DeLone man the keyboards. Paul Riley and Kirchen co-produced. For this album, Kirchen decided to put an accent on his songwriting, a talent that is sometimes overshadowed by his dazzling instrumental virtuosity.

In addition to his paean to the Telecaster and the Arthur Alexander-penned finale, Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods touches on such idioms as Kirchen's Michigan Motown soul roots ("Soul Cruisin'" and a take of "Devil With the Blue Dress" with glimmers of the Shorty Long original), barroom blues (Blackie Farrell's "Skid Row In My Mind"), doo-wop ("Working Man") and Sun Records rockabilly meets Jerry Lee Lewis boogie-woogie ("Heart of Gold), in addition to the honky-tonk, Western swing and "dieselbilly, " of which Kirchen is an acknowledged master. Kirchen has appeared on record and stage with a who's who of talent that includes Lowe, Doug Sahm, Ralph Stanley, Gene Vincent, Elvis Costello, Emmlyou Harris, Hoyt Axton, Link Wray and Danny Gatton. (At the recent Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco, Bill played guitar with Elvis Costello, who named his band for the event The Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods after Bill's upcoming release, and featured Bill singing the title song.) Kirchen was nominated for a 2001 Grammy Award for "Best Country Instrumental Performance" for his song "Poultry in Motion, " and in 2002 was inducted into the Washington Area Music Association Hall of Fame alongside John Philip Sousa and Dave Grohl of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters. He has lectured at the Smithsonian Institution and the 1998 Elvis Presley Conference in Memphis. He is featured in the TNN special Yesterday & Today: Honky Tonk & Western Swing. Not bad for one who started his musical journey in Ann Arbor, where he attended high school with Iggy Pop and Bob Seger. In the late '60s, after leading the hippie rock band the Seventh Seal in Ann Arbor, Kirchen helped form Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airman and relocated them to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1969. The band recorded seven albums before breaking up in 1975. Their album Live From Deep in the Heart of Texas was named one of the 100 best albums of all time by Rolling Stone. Over the course of two subsequent albums on Black Top Records and three on HighTone, plus appearances on Nick Lowe's recent recordings, Kirchen solidified his reputation as one of the most thrilling roots-music guitarists as well as a singer and songwriter of keen wit and poignant insight. All it takes is a spin of Hammer of the Honky-Tonk Gods or a night with Bill Kirchen onstage as he tears the roof off anywhere he appears, to agree with what the Austin American-Statesman says: "Bill Kirchen rules. It's just that simple."

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