Cover boys

Mike Ness and Alan Jackson dig up their roots

by J. Poet

It is almost impossible to imagine any room, short of an anonymous hotel bar far from home, where the singers Alan Jackson and Mike Ness might be seen together. Even in that highly hypothetical nightspot one can only imagine the two men -- one a Georgian wearing a cream-colored cowboy hat, the other the much-decorated leader of SoCal punks Social Distortion -- at opposite ends of the dark lounge, glaring uneasily. Yet Jackson and Ness have recently found themselves in the same position: each putting his own name on an album of classic country cover tunes titled Under the Influence.

Both incarnations of Under the Influence represent risk, though Ness and Jackson have both earned the right, through their respective bodies of work, to go out on a limb from time to time. Jackson is one of the few multi-platinum artists who still sings in a traditional country style, but even he can hardly expect country radio to air this long-player. It is, he recognizes in his liner notes, a kind of indulgence he has earned. Ness, who's been crunching country through a Clash/Cash filter since the early '80s with his Social Distortion, arguably has less to lose: he remains less accustomed than Jackson to hearing his songs on the radio. But one suspects No Doubt fans will find little to dance to among his influences.

Jackson's Influences are comparatively recent, drawn from the dawn of his career in the early '80s. He takes a turn at Jim Ed Brown's "Pop a Top," Charley Pride's "Kiss an Angel Good Mornin'," and John Anderson's "She Just Started Liking Cheatin' Songs." (Those are the singers who popularized the songs, not the songwriters.) But the core of his Influences are two Merle Haggard pieces, and two Johnny Paycheck songs recorded by George Jones. Ness takes on a broader sample of country history and consequently makes a shallower plunge. He nods toward distant roots with the Carter Family's "Wildwood Flower," blasts through Hank Williams's "House of Gold," and draws leather on Marty Robbins's classic "Big Iron." He also pounds out "I Fought the Law," as if the Clash hadn't already transformed the Bobby Fuller Four's rockabilly hit into epic punk rock. But for all the reverence Ness and Jackson bring to these texts, both albums are more interesting to read (and write) about than they are to hear. What's missing? The very emotion that makes country and punk rock compelling.

"I wasn't trying to make these songs my own, to put my own mark on them," Jackson writes in his liner notes -- which seems an odd aim for so certain and gifted a singer. Perhaps he doesn't wish to upstage his heroes, but the tradition Jackson seeks to honor demands that he invest some of himself in these songs -- otherwise they're not worth singing. The pieces are about prices paid, after all. The one moment he well and truly hits his mark, on Haggard's "The Way I Am," is almost spectacular.

It doesn't help that Keith Stegall's production scrupulously isolates Jackson's vocals from the rest of the music, as if to suggest a kind of high-dollar karaoke. And it really doesn't help that the final cut is a duet with Jimmy Buffett on "Margaritaville."

Ness comes to the music with other limitations. Although punk respects passion, the passion punk prefers is, well, rage. Not much tenderness in that tradition, and there's certainly no crying in punk rock. Plus, Ness has a loud, blustery voice that screams eloquently but is not noted for its subtleties. So Whispering Bill Anderson's "Once a Day" comes off almost as caricature, particularly given the bluntness with which the backing band play. In the end, Ness likewise approaches these songs with too much respect, torn between what he's good at and the demands of songs he clearly loves.

If nothing else, this coincidental conjunction reminds us that both country music and punk rock value emotional honesty above all other qualities. And that the singing of trad country music has, for the moment, acquired the curious cachet of being a radical statement. Why? Perhaps in part because the New South still hasn't figured out what to make of country music, that enduring legacy of the Old South. Blame it on the Hee Haw cliché: toothless hillbillies drinking moonshine and picking on a slouching front porch, surrounded by barefoot kids and drooling dogs, not getting a lick of work done. That's not quite the demographic profile multinational executives covet these days.

The new country-radio fan lives, today's executives say (or hope), in the well-tended suburbs, drives an SUV to soccer practice, and reserves his or her regional accent for family reunions. This, in part, explains the urgency with which Nashville-based labels seek validation in the broader pop-music world, and the fervor with which the success that Garth Brooks and Shania Twain enjoy in that world is embraced. The future is pop, the past is Pop's.