My Amazon Reviews: Stan Ridgeway "Songs That Made This Country Great"

Stan's Standards
5 Out of 5 Stars

In another millennia, Stan Ridgeway would be a travelling minstrel. Take away the sometimes quirky electronic arrangements, and what you have is one of America's great unheralded storytellers. Be the stories myths, legends, full truths or absolute fictions, Stan Ridegway tells them like no other artist. From his beginnings as a goth-spaghetti western new waver in Wall Of Voodoo (in here three times) to the joker who says (in "I Wanna Be A Boss") "I wanna take a two week vacation 26 times a year," Ridgeway is master wordsmith with few peers. Of course, that means most of his work is out of print.

Other than The Big Heat (containing his biggest international hit, "Camouflage") and WoV's Call of the West, all his 90's work is getting tougher to find. Even this collection is off the market, and that is a damn shame. I consider Ridgeway to be among writers like Dylan, Costello and Kurt Weill. There's a certain kind of film noir quality to Ridgeway's best work, like the desperate bank robber in the cab of "Drive She Said" or the conspiratorial "Going Southbound." Maybe if Raymond Chandler wrote songs, they'd sound like Ridgeway's sing-speak of "The Big Heat" or "Peg and Pete and Me."

"I met 'em both at a drag race, they both dressed pretty snappy that day.
Pete's wife Peg put the make on me while Pete just looked the other way.
Now no one can say what your future will hold
or what your life will have in store.
We went home that night, Pete passed out on the couch
and then Peg pulled me down on the floor.
Well, I know she knew what she was doing.
Forbidden fruit, but what the hell, I bit.
That's all it took, my fate was sealed, that night the flame was lit."

Really, no-one writes like this anymore. Find this where you can because it's absolutely worth it.