Longtime fans will notice an artistic shift on Wayne Toups’ first nontrad Americanaish outing since 2004’s Whoever Said It Was Easy. Unlike on Easy, Toups plays accordion on only five tracks, but the good news is that the signature zydecajun bounce is still soundly intact.
Passionate vocals and handpicked, heartfelt songs are really what’s on tap here. Toups enlisted Shreveport native/Nashville heavyweight producer James Stroud, who brought these proceedings to life and embellished the existing Dockside Studio tracks that Toups had already produced.
Though many of these heartfelt ballads could contend somewhere in today’s country market, don’t think of Toups as the next faceless Nashville hat act. This is a showcase for his warm, gritty vocals and quite possibly his best singing yet. While there’s the anxiety of leaving (“How Can I Tell Her”) and lamenting love lost (“A Good One”), the album’s autobiographical blockbuster is “I’m Alive.” Cowritten with country hitmaking songwriter Randy Boudreaux, the song chronicles Toups’ resiliency after hitting rock bottom.
If Toups plans on expanding his artist role, it’s paramount to take on the occasional social political issue. That he does with the 2010 Gulf oil spill on the original “Tears on the Bayou.” Though he doesn’t quite go for the jugular of corporate greed, the appeal is an emotional one. The line “Can’t you hear the angels crying” is not only haunting but suggests that mankind’s destruction of our planet doesn’t go unnoticed from above.
