Album Review – Coleman Jennings – “Lead You Home”

Western (#512) and Classic Country (#510.1) on the Country DDS.

Herein lies what might be one of the greatest Western-inspired albums released in this year, or frankly, in many other years. With his debut album produced by Dave Cobb, the young-in-age, but old-in-soul Austin-based musician Coleman Jennings puts on a clinic of originally-composed and perfectly-produced songs that call to mind the white-capped rocky peaks, painted deserts, wide prairies, and the playground of imagination alive in the American West.

What Lead You Home also includes is Coleman’s very distinctive vocal delivery that robustly colors the listening experience well beyond whatever else is happening. For some, this is what will draw them in intently and sell them on this young man’s virtues, irrespective of all the other praises the solo-written songs, or the savvy instrumentation married to them deserves. To others, it will be this very same voice that will keep them immediately at arm’s length while they wonder how anyone can remain in Coleman’s audience for an extended period.

The story of Coleman Jennings starts in Connecticut, but Texas is where he was raised since he was seven years old. Finding inspiration in songwriters like Blaze Foley and Townes Van Zandt strongly influenced his musical maturation as he formed the band Coleman Jennings and the Roaddogs to play gigs here and there while polishing off an English degree at the University of Texas in Austin. Now signed to Big Loud Texas, the intent is to take his regional dialect distinctly set many decades in the past to an international and contemporary audience.

What’s for sure is that Coleman, Dave Cobb, and Big Loud are all reading the moment correctly. What audiences crave is a rugged authenticity roughly-hewn into songs that come with the bark still on and the moments thick with emotion and feeling. Citing Townes and Blaze isn’t simply lip service for Coleman. This music is delightfully uninterested in striking a sensibility for radio audiences or trend chasers.

Don’t take that to mean some of these songs don’t come with an inherent infectiousness, and ones whose symptoms can present almost immediately. Building out from a banjo riff, “Jamie” comes with great melodic prowess to compliment the writing. “Flyin'” finds a super hot honky tonk Telecaster sound without entirely dishonoring the more Western flavor that coats the record. “Good While It Lasted” is something you have to double check that Ernest Tubb or Lefty Frizzell didn’t write or record back in the day.

Just as impressive as the more upbeat moments of the album are, it’s the more quiet, solemn songs that really sell you on the virtues of Coleman Jennings the artist. The final two songs, “First Born Home,” and especially “I Will Lead You Home” absolutely stun you with their emotionality. The melody of “I Will Lead You Home” is so immediately meaningful to your soul. It feels less like a country & Western song, and something akin to a symphonic movement set to a cinematic panorama.

You struggle to find fault with much of anything that transpires on Lead You Home. Yet the verdict on this album and Coleman Jennings may still result in many hung juries among households and fan groups, simply from how rich and vibrato-laden Jennings’ vocal delivery is. Taste is so paramount here, with its inherent subjectivity. It’s not necessarily fair to accuse Coleman of an affectation or inauthenticity. It’s just the vocal signal is so pronounced, it naturally divides the audience.

Taste aside, a strong argument can be made that if you can’t hear the annunciation of the words and take them into your heart, you’re losing that critical experience to the music. This is certainly the case for many of these songs, though some like “Jaime” and “Good While It Lasted” feel less cursed by this than others. Even still, the instruction that Coleman could dry his singing out and it would result in a wider audience and more resonant songs feels like a fair one.

But just like the West that presents high peaks, low valleys, empty deserts, and wide expanses you must traverse to discover its beauty, so is the music of Coleman Jennings. For some, the journey will be too daunting for them to embark on. But for others, they will gladly accept that challenge, and even revel in it for what they receive in the end.

8.2/10

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Purchase/Stream Lead You Home