CD Review- Hal Ketchum- Father Time

If you’re looking for today’s country on the new album Father Time from Hal Ketchum- which might include loud drums, obligatory guitar solos or overdubbed choruses- this is not the album for you. However, if you were hoping for Hal Ketchum’s signature sound and sensitive vocal prowess, thoughtful lyrics and gentle instrumentation, Father Time is an album that you’ll want to add to your music collection. It will go down as one of the best works of his career.

In an era of over-production, Hal Ketchum decided to record Father Time the old-fashioned way. In the course of two days, Hal and his crack band of respected studio cranked out 14 tunes that speak to the way records used to be recorded- even laying them down on the CD in the same order they were recorded in the studio. Ketchum gathered Nashville's A-list string players, hunkered down together in the main room of a studio and cut a record in two days. It is a refreshing contrast to the markings of many of today's country records.

Acoustic country at a premier level, there's the subtle fiddle-guitar play backing Ketchum's warm, easy vocals on Strangest Dreams, the weepy steel guitar on the lonely Civil War ode Sparrow, and the compelling mandolin riffs on Let Me Go and The Preacher and I, a tune in which Ketchum says is the first song he ever wrote. There's even a wry, bare-bones take on Tom Waits' Jersey Girl.

As the album’s title suggests, a prevailing theme throughout the project is time. Songs such as “Yesterday’s Gone”, “Invisible”, “Ordinary Day” and “When He Called Your Name” are some of the compositions that explore the perspective that often accompanies the passing of time. The opening song, “Invisible”, is from the viewpoint of a homeless man who is sad, but not bitter about the contemptuous manner with which people tend to look at him. While he acknowledges that “he has become expendable, untouchable, invisible”, he reveals that this hasn’t always been the case in his life. Ultimately, he benevolently wishes that the people around him will have “the gift of never being me.”

“Yesterday’s Gone” finds a younger man trying to make sense of mortality as he watches his grandfather fading away. He sings, “It’s hard to believe as I sit here and hold him/How mountains will crumble and Yesterday’s gone.” Another song that struggles with the affects of time is “Ordinary Day”, wherein we find a waitress who feels that her life has passed without accomplishing much for her to be proud of.

While a rather wide range of emotions can be found on this album, the most poignant track is the steel guitar laden “Sparrow.” As the best compositions about war tend to do, this song explores the reality of war and the dark effect that it has on soldiers. With detectable despair in his voice, Ketchum sings, “If I were a sparrow I would fly/And if I were alone now I would cry/But tears won’t bring my brothers back home to their mothers/Or bring comfort to a soul too young to die.”

Hal Ketchum hasn’t had an album released in the United States for six years, but for longtime fans, Father Time is well worth the wait. The raw, what-you-hear, is-what-we-played sound is refreshing indeed but without strong songs, nobody would care for the album. In a career filled with well-constructed albums, Father Time may just be the crowning achievement of Hal Ketchum’s career.