Rollicking Fun with Rick Adams
No Cover at the Door

I laughed out loud when I heard the honky-tonk pi-yanno, the snarlin’ dobro and the lines “She got caboose, she got engine,” from “She Got Caboose,” the first cut off of Rick Adam’s new CD, No Cover at the Door. 

Rick has a kind of Jim Croce energy that conjures pictures of tables crammed with happy folks, sawdust on the floor, focused bar maids juggling trays of brew, and a dance floor jammed with couples swinging their partners.

This CD most definitely belongs in the category “Country Music that Doesn’t Suck.” Rick’s country tenor is perfect as it zips along the clever lyrics that are woven into both happy and sad tunes. His songwriting also makes me think of Hank Williams and Johnny Cash with songs like “Blue Just Looks Black,” and “Some Winds are Lonesome.”

“I’m Gonna Buy You A Shrimp Boat” has an old timey sound similar to the zany Erika Eigen tune, “I Want to Marry a Lighthouse Keeper.” The fiddle played by Al Berard, ties the song with a pretty bow.

Bennet Spielvogel’s piano playing is a total joy, it arcs through “No Cover at the Door” like a musical rainbow. In fact, the musicianship is about perfect on every cut.

“Yazoo Delta Railway” is a history lesson about a real railway called, you guessed it, The Yazoo Delta Railway. It was nicknamed, “Yellow Dog,” which may have something to do with the initials YD? In any case it claims to be the place where W.C. Handy was first inspired to play the Delta Blues, and thus Rick was inspired to write this bouncy little tune.

Rick encapsulates the familiar sentiment of how men often feel when their women want them to go dancing, with his tune, “The More That She Dances” (the drunker I get.) This one has dandy slap bass playing by Ryan Gould.

The ballad “Bury the Pain” is worthy of Elvis with lines like, “The candles are melting just like the years.”

Stanley Smith weaves his cool and woody sounding clarinet on “Yazoo Delta Railway,” as well as the album’s other historical journey, “Going to Memphis 1933.”

You’ll want to tap your foot through “Three More Rivers” and then top the whole thing off with the Cajun crawfish sound of “Liberer L’Amour (Bust the Lock).”

This is a great album. It already kept me awake and dancing in my seat driving home late one night. Rick, I hope you come to Maine so we can hear ya live and in person up here! Love it!