Chris Stamey was an early acolyte of Southern jangle pop, obsessing over
Big Star when
Radio City still languished in cutout bins and releasing
Chris Bell's masterful 1978 "I Am the Cosmos" single on his
Car Records label when no one else would. So if he wants to play up the Southern side of his clever pop formula, he's more than entitled to, and 2023's
The Great Escape adds a bit of twang to the sound he's been celebrating since the salad days of
the dB's in the late '70s.
Stamey worked with pedal steel guitarist
Eric Heywood when they were both touring with
Alejandro Escovedo in 2017, and
Stamey invited
Heywood to add his expert touch to several of these songs. The high-lonesome accents on "Here's How We Start Again" and sweeping solos on "Realize" add a faint country feel to the arrangements that blends well with
Stamey's pop classicism, while "Dear Friend" (which features
John Teer and
Dave Wilson from the progressive bluegrass group
Chatham County Line) finds him writing with an eye toward contemporary C&W that fits his skill set nicely. Of course, as much as
Stamey loves his North Carolina home, he's also a city boy at heart, and it's witty and fitting that both "Greensboro Days" and "Back in New York" find him celebrating the romance of New York City on his country-leaning LP (the latter appearing in both acoustic and electric arrangements). Elsewhere, "The Sweetheart of the Video" is classic, sweetly sad pop in the
Stamey manner, "She Might Look My Way" is a rare
Alex Chilton &
Tommy Hoehn composition
Stamey handles with loving aplomb, and "The One and Only (Van Dyke Parks)" is a playful celebration of the day he unexpectedly fielded a phone call from one of his heroes. Forty-seven years after
Sneakers reinvented Southern power pop,
The Great Escape shows that
Chris Stamey still has a faultless touch as a songwriter, vocalist, producer, and arranger, and it gently but confidently sees him adding new colors to his palette and using them well. ~ Mark Deming
![Solar Power [Discless Product]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602438176496_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Solar Power [Discless Product]")
![Stick Season (We'll All Be Here Forever) [2 CD]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602465334807_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Stick Season (We'll All Be Here Forever) [2 CD]")
