After being misused criminally at MCA, Cowboy Mouth has landed at Blackbird, the artist-friendly subsidiary at Atlantic. Easy is the latest of their major label efforts—a sort of “third time’s the charm,” if you will, after MCA bungled momentum on two potentially huge hits, “Jenny Says” off Are You With Me? and “Whatcha Gonna Do” from Mercyland. With Easy, producer Jim Ebart (Jason Falkner, Meredith Brooks) has imbued the band’s Bo Diddley-drinks-hurricanes-with-the-Clash brand of New Orleans rock with certain up-to-the-minute, techno/contempo influences, and the results are generally exhilarating. While little has changed about their easily ID’d songwriting or the tell-tale voice of Fred LeBlanc, the production techniques clearly bring a certain radio-tailored sizzle to the table.
And let’s face it, folks, while Cowboy Mouth has the sort of following that can guarantee them a solid future in frat-circuit land as long as they’re willing, they’re a great enough band with singular and sufficiently catchy material that they deserve to be huge—and if the sound of Easy betokens an effort on their part to move to the next level, well, more power to ’em. The first single, “Easy,” has been a live staple for a while now, and is starting to kick up some attention at influential radio stations. Even if it doesn’t break big, it will serve as a fine introduction for an album’s worth of potential hit singles, among them the begs-to-be-sung-along “Everybody Loves Jill,” the hook-clustered “Marianne,” and the urban-filtered “Everything You Do.” Or clever remakes of “China,” the old MTV hit done by guitarist/vocalist John Thomas Griffith’s old outfit Red Rockers, and “How Do You Tell Someone” from It Means Escape and Are You With Me? Which brings up an obvious point: why does the band continue to reissue older tunes when they all write prodigiously and rhythm guitarist/vocalist Paul Sanchez is virtually shut out on Easy? LeBlanc addresses the recyling issue with characteristic aplomb: “Blackbird asked very persuasively to put ‘How Do You Tell Someone’ on the CD because they felt the song was a hit and that MCA had dropped the ball with it.” As for China, this version is a radically altered and utterly fresh version. Concerning Sanchez, well, he’s had plenty of solo material in the marketplace of late, and maybe it just didn’t work out this time. Besides, it’s not as though LeBlanc and Griffith have dropped the ball. Indeed, with the fresh production, the abundance of hip songs, and a typically enthusiastic set of performances from the band, Easy could well be the CD to take them to the level they’ve deserved all along.
