If you haven’t already heard of Hayes Carll, you soon will. In the
three years since his self-released second album, Little Rock became available,
Carll has toured relentlessly in North America and abroad (performing over
two hundred shows a year), founded a successful singer-songwriter music
festival on the Gulf Coast of Texas, secured a record deal with Lost Highway
Records, and has even seen Little Rock become the first self-released album
to reach #1 on the Americana Music Chart. He’s only getting started.
On his new album, Trouble In Mind, the 32 year-old Carll navigates his
way through both stormy weather and calm, sun-drenched waters with ease,
emerging with songs that melt even the hardest heart in town (a feat he
manages on the plaintive, world-weary "Don't Let Me Fall") or
heat up a roadhouse (like the ruggedly strutting "Wild as a Turkey").
Their impact is heightened by the fact that they're songs born of both
immersion in the works of his songwriting heroes and plenty of real world
experience.
"When I started, I moved down to this place called Crystal Beach,
Texas where you need to take a ferry from Galveston across the bay to
get to this little peninsula on the Gulf of Mexico," recalls Carll,
who grew up just outside Houston. "It's this isolated coastal community
with a wild assortment of people either hiding out, hanging on or getting
lost-- a lot of drugs and drinking, a fair amount of violence, but at
the same time a lot of really interesting people with great stories to
tell. Folks in the bars there weren't necessarily interested in what I
had to say as a songwriter-- they wanted to hear David Allan Coe and Merle
Haggard, and other stuff they knew. So that's what I did six nights a
week for four years. I haven't run into tougher crowds since. It was an
initiation into becoming a performer."
Those experiences not only gave Carll a thick skin, they gave him plenty
of material to spin into songs like the low-slung, finger-picked blues
"I Got a Gig" -- populated by characters like the "barefoot
shrimper with a pistol up his sleeve" -- and the tear-in-your-beer
waltz "Beaumont," in which a suitor bearing a single white rose
makes a fruitless trip to try to win over a lady love. Carll says of the
latter tune. "I like to try to tackle a heavy topic but do it with
a light touch. The more personal, weightier stuff doesn't come as easy,
even though that's what I like to think about the most."
Carll’s personality, emotional but never too sentimental, mischievous,
funny, world-weary and sardonic, imbues every track of Trouble in Mind.
He’s never afraid to be vulnerable and direct, as on one of the standout
tracks, “Willing to Love Again” - “I feel too much, I protect
too much, most times I probably expect too much. I spend my life on this
broken crutch, and you believe I can fly.”
Carll’s live performances continue to win over fans everywhere.
His clever, irreverent lyrics and sharp observations combined with his
warm Texas drawl make his stories and anecdotes as compelling and entertaining
as his songs. There’s that sweet taste of honey followed with the
sharp sting of a wisecrack.
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