‘Honky Tonk Hell’ isn’t just a great record. It verifies that Gabe Lee will be one of the next great artists in country and roots music that we’ll hopefully be hearing plenty from and enjoying for years to come. Gabe Lee will continue to fly under-the-radar for many because he’s just too damn good, but it should win him the bigger audience he deserves.
There’s no pulling of punches or production elements here. Co-written with Marcus King about the wild circus that is lower Broadway in Nashville, and employing a Southern rock band behind him in the studio, “Honky Tonk Hell” opens up and entirely new audience for Gabe. But the new record isn’t all fire and brimstone.
As the first song off the just-announced fourth studio album Hard Times and White Lines, “Honky Tonk Hell” finds Whitey Morgan and the 78’s singing about what they know best. Slow and plodding like a drunk whose trying to amble off a bar stool towards the set of swinging doors, but is stuck perpetually ordering one more round…