Tommy Womack: There I Said It

Mix together a nervous breakdown, re-entry into the 9-5 world after twenty-odd years of the rock life, and a particularly literate mind fearing he may never make another record, and what’s the result? Fortunately, it’s the new Tommy Womack CD There I Said It on the Cedar Creek Music label. Scheduled for a February 20 release date, it’s the former Government Cheese and Bis-quits member’s first solo release in four years, and the highly personal material is rich in its eclectic unguardedness on a road musician coping with “regular” life.

“God came across my teeth with a skillet of White Light Truth . . . You had yer shot, thanks a lot,” Womack said in the liner notes to There, I Said It! It was the start of a breakdown in 2003, the year of his last solo release Washington D.C. In the midst of it, his wife lost her job and Tommy had to take an office job. He characterized his reaction to the 9-to-5 world as “throwing up on the way to work, eating Xanax like Skittles – and I couldn’t leave! I was the breadwinner now. I’d never make another record again.”

Apparently, that last fear turned out to be unjustified. Not only has Womack made another record, he got called back into music through Todd Snider, playing in his band including several high profile appearances such as the Tonight Show. He recently played a featured round at the Bluebird with Marshall Chapman and Tim Krekel on December 28. As for the CD, XM Radio got a promo copy of it early and started playing it, and at press time it was #2 on their X Country channel. The Nashville Tennessean called it “a searing, hilarious, sad and brilliant album.”

Beginning with the lament “A Songwriter’s Prayer,” the songs generally are in sequence from the beginning of Tommy’s office life to the other end, from the crash of aspirations of stardom to the resumption of music coexisting with appreciation of family. Womack is joined on There, I Said It! by longtime musical collaborator Will Kimbrough, who along with Womack formed the band Daddy and released At The Women’s Club last year. John Deaderick, who has worked with the Dixie Chicks and Patty Griffin, both produced and played keyboards on the disc.

Appearing on the album with Womack (vocals, acoustic and electric guitars) are Will Kimbrough (electric guitar) and fellow Bowling Green musician Fenner Castner (drums). Other players include John Deaderick (keyboards, drums), Jay Johnson (bass), Audley Freed (electric guitar), Smith Curry (pedal steel, dobro), John Gardner (drums), Lisa Gray (vocals), and son Nathan Womack (guitar). The disc was produced by John Deaderick and executive produced by Russ Riddle.

One of the top tracks “Nice Day” juxtaposes an easy, calm groove with Womack’s perspective of a good family day: “It’s been a nice day/We all went swimming/’I love you, daddy’/He said that twice/Nothing got broken/No one got sunburned/I never freaked out/It was nice.” The song, where Tommy also voices fears of “working at Mapco making change when I’m 64,” is a neurotically friendly side of what Ice Cube explored years ago with his “It Was a Good Day.”

“I’m Never Gonna Be a Rock Star,” which gives the disc its title, is an inflection point in the album; he laments missing out on magazine covers and limousine sex, and after admitting stardom passed him by he remarks on the fade-out “Where’s my catharsis?” There’s the rambling, poetic, nearly seven-minute “Alpha Male & the Canine Mystery Blood” and the roadhouse “Fluorescent Light Blues” obviously inspired by office work. “Too Much Month at the End of the Xanax” is charged with buzzing guitars and the entreaty to the doc that the need for a higher dose is not about fun but “staying off ledges, living a life with a lot of rough edges.”

Perhaps the most auto-biographical song is the acoustic “I Want a Cigarette” showing how Tommy views living. He states in the liner notes that he wrote the song in his head. “I haven’t written it down yet. Haven’t had to. It’s my life. I couldn’t forget it if I tried.” Or it could be “A Cockroach After the Bomb,” showing his resilience coming out the other end of his transitional tunnel. He sings “I used to be somebody, I was a star/It takes a lot of guts to fall this far,” credits his wife for keeping him out of a cell, and cites the role of circumstance in fame (“What if Jimi’s lighter hadn’t lighted/What if Monet was just nearsighted/I’ll go to my grave knowing I took me a chance”).

The combination of Womack’s articulation, emotional transparency, and trademark irreverence is a heady brew, and even though 2007 is barely started There, I Said It! will deserve a position at year’s end on many a top 10 album list. It is a hard-fought master work and damned enjoyable to listen to. Watch your favorite record store or online site or http://www.tommywomack.com for its arrival.