McBride & The Ride - Amarillo Sky (2002)

Terry McBride (lead vocals, bass guitar), Billy Thomas (vocals and drums) and Ray Herndon (lead guitar and dobro) briefly reunited as McBride & the Ride in 2002, releasing their final album (Amarillo Sky) on the Dualtone Records label that year before splitting up again. McBride then joined the backing band for the country duo Brooks & Dunn, in addition to co-writing several of the duo's songs.

There's an irony in "Amarillo Sky", the first song and title track of McBride and The Ride's fourth album after a nearly 10-year hiatus, that pretty much sets the tone for the record. The song is about a hardworking farmer who heads for the field every day knowing "Those burning rays are wearing down his body / And diesel's worth the price of gold / And it's the cheapest grain he's ever sold". But, we're told, "still he's holding on". While spending his day on a tractor, he's thinking about his crops and kids (in that order), "underneath this Amarillo sky".

Of course, the irony is that his diesel tractor sends some pretty ugly stuff into that sky he loves so much -- but he's not thinking about that.

And therein lies the fundamental musical tension in Amarillo Sky: McBride and The Ride, now on indie label Dualtone as opposed to MCA, keep saying they're doing what they want musically, but this one's got the Nashville formula all over it.

That's not to say that McBride and The Ride's signature harmonies don't sound great -- they do, with Terry McBride's lead tenor blending perfectly with Ray Herndon's and Billy Thomas's harmonies. Plus, it's great to hear pedal steel on something besides an Alan Jackson song, but then there's that almost overwhelming Nashville-pop production, courtesy of Matt Rollings.

Just think of it as diesel smoke.

Track List:

01 - Amarillo Sky
02 - Sure Feels Like It
03 - Anything That Touches You
04 - You Take My Heart There
05 - Leave Her With Me
06 - Yours
07 - Squeeze Box
08 - Why Not Colorado
09 - Hasta Luego
10 - When Somebody Loves You

Download includes front cover