Album Review – JP Harris – “JP Harris is a Trash Fire”

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#510.2, #580, #590 (Honky Tonk, Outlaw Country, Underground Country) on the Country DDS.

As self-deprecating and under-the-radar as JP Harris may be, he is no less than a living legend to a lot of the independent country performers in East Nashville and beyond, and to the handful of fervent fans he’s accrued since releasing his debut country album I’ll Keep Calling in 2012.

Harris is a true-to-life blue collar musician who doesn’t just split his time as a contractor in the building trades in Nashville. Swinging hammers and working chop saws is his full-time pursuit. It’s just this music thing keeps getting in the way. He could have easily stopped coming home covered in sawdust many years ago. But an honest living has always seemed to be JP’s top priority.

Besides, Harris has contributed to the music scene through his construction work in immeasurable ways, from housing musicians who arrive in Nashville and need help getting their foot in the door, to employing them part-time between tours. Harris saw the writing on the wall that pursuing music as an occupation during the Bro-Country era wouldn’t exactly be a brilliant use of his time.

It’s only appropriate that JP’s first full band album in six years comes via Bloodshot Records. Perennially underground with too much grit and attitude for any other outfit, the only wonder is why it took so long for Harris and Bloodshot to partner up. In the spirit of insurgent country, Harris underscores in the new album’s title track how in the underground, success is often measured simply by surviving.

I’m like a trash fire raging at the scrap metal yard by the highway.
It keeps burning against their will.
It might take me some time, but you know I’m gonna do it my way.
The world keeps turning, and I stand still.

Harris concedes that in the economy of streams and Instagram plays, he’s a old dog who’s outmatched. But JP Harris Is A Trash Fire isn’t as much of a kiss-off to the recording industry as it is Harris engaging in surprisingly deep reflection about the past loves of his life. Despite all the bluster and the tub of “heavy duty mayo” on the cover, the album finds numerous moments of eloquence, poeticism, and might we even say a rugged version of refinement.



Listeners are left rather stunned by the turns of phrase found in the album’s second song, “To The Doves.” This comparison isn’t offered lightly, but this song truly sounds like something Kris Kristofferson would have written in his heyday, and some big star would’ve had made a major hit in 1976. Same goes for the sweet and subtle writing from Harris in the song “Write It All Down.” He throws a clinic here in how to craft a lyrical hook and wrap a chorus around it in a way that feels immediately reverberative and timeless.

These songs aren’t really “romantic” odes though. They speak to a wandering man with a wandering eye finding love where he can, who nonetheless recalls his dalliances fondly and with reverence. The opening song “Old Fox” is slightly more irreverent, and “Dark Thoughts” might be considered downright creepy, but with the outmoded perspective served with a pinch of sarcasm being the whole point.

The album may not be especially romantic, but it does include ample sentimentality. Harris is synonymous with a number of different places, but his home state of Alabama is probably the least of those. As he explains in “East Alabama,” it was never really meant to hold him beyond his formative years, and is really no more than a fading memory now. “Barbra Dee” is a very sweet ode to his mother, who some fans may have met at JP’s annual “Sunday Morning Coming Down” events during AmericanaFest from a few years ago.

Produced by JD McPherson, the music and approach to JP Harris Is a Trash Fire is nothing fancy, even when the writing is. There are a lot of different moods to keep things spicy. But this feels like a JP Harris album, and a Bloodshot Records album, meaning a little rough-hewn and lacking polish. But that what you want and expect. It’s the songs that matter.

These days, there’s fiercely independent country performers and songwriters accruing 70 million streams in six weeks from leveraging Tik-Tok and turning around and signing major label distribution deals. JP Harris is one of those performers who if he was just showing up on the scene might be the next hot thing. But since he’s established and known, those opportunities just aren’t open to him.

Perhaps if he’d stopped taking construction bids in 2012 and pursued music full-time, the career of JP Harris would be in a different place. But for those clued into his work both on the stage, in the studio, and in the music community, they need no convincing of the importance of JP Harris. He might be a “trash fire,” but his flame of dogged resistance is an inspiration to many, and his new album adds to his varied and vital musical legacy.


8.2/10

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