'Til You've Seen Mine

'Til You've Seen Mine

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Largely because his band consists of a percussionist, a guitarist-mandolinist, and a background singer, Tom House is usually considered a contemporary, literary version of the early country performers featured on the Harry Smith anthology, sort of a Holy Modal Rounder with politics and poesy. But you need only hear such manic tracks as "Long Hard Drinking" and "Malbourne Hotel" to think of him also as a Dixie-fried Loudon Wainwright. He shares country's traditional preoccupation with family, albeit with a different spin ("Sister's Song," "Letter from My Father"). His characters draw a sharper line this time between outsiders ("Bull City Blues") and just plain ordinary folk with troubled hearts ("The Cold Hard Curve of a Question Mark"), while his imagery is as heart-stopping as ever ("You ain't seen tears 'til you seen mine / They run like razors in thin red lines"). And the addition of Nashville semi-stars like Pat McLaughlin, Sam Bush, and David Olney broadens House's sound without otherwise altering it. --John Morthland

Product Description
Restless & raw, Nashville "barroom singer" & published poet Tom House draws from the deep wells of country, folk, and old-timey music to back his unblinking-eye songwriting style.

'Til You've Seen Mine

Tracks:

Bull City Blues
Sister's Song
The Cold Hard Curve of a Question Mark
Driving Round Houston
Where Will You Lay Your Head
Long Hard Drinking
Canada
Elmer Smith
Malbourne Hotel
The Black Sheep
Down in the Hole
Letter from My Father

Amazon.com

Largely because his band consists of a percussionist, a guitarist-mandolinist, and a background singer, Tom House is usually considered a contemporary, literary version of the early country performers featured on the Harry Smith anthology, sort of a Holy Modal Rounder with politics and poesy. But you need only hear such manic tracks as "Long Hard Drinking" and "Malbourne Hotel" to think of him also as a Dixie-fried Loudon Wainwright. He shares country's traditional preoccupation with family, albeit with a different spin ("Sister's Song," "Letter from My Father"). His characters draw a sharper line this time between outsiders ("Bull City Blues") and just plain ordinary folk with troubled hearts ("The Cold Hard Curve of a Question Mark"), while his imagery is as heart-stopping as ever ("You ain't seen tears 'til you seen mine / They run like razors in thin red lines"). And the addition of Nashville semi-stars like Pat McLaughlin, Sam Bush, and David Olney broadens House's sound without otherwise altering it. --John Morthland

Album Description

Restless & raw, Nashville "barroom singer" & published poet Tom House draws from the deep wells of country, folk, and old-timey music to back his unblinking-eye songwriting style.

Customer Reviews:

"Like Barbed Wire Wrapped Round A Gift From Hell".......2001-11-30

For fans of the "O Brother"/"Down From the Mountain" bluegrass revival, hop off the frieght and spend a little moonshine time with Tom House. He sounds like Doc Boggs suddenly sprung up from his grave and started singing again. But in spite of the inevitable comparisons, there's no hillbilly, early Dylan mimicry here. House has his own brand of originality with staggered rythmns and a mesmerizing intensity, not to mention a way with words. A true rarity, a first rate songwriter putting a contemprary edge into time worn tradition. With a voice creakier than the joints of a homemade casket, he sets about spinning tales of life just off the freeway.

"Bull City Blues" starts things off with a cheerful romp of fiddle & jug. A footstomping ode to hard drinking in a small town. The next cut, "Sister's Song" is a moving account of a little sister turning her back on that Bad Seed of an elder brother. "The Cold Hard Curve of a Question Mark" and "Canada" are a heart breaking pair of love songs, on par with the likes Hank Williams. Full of yearning in the face of certain loss.

In between ballads, House populates the album with hard drinking losers like "Elmer Smith" & seedy transient memories like "The Melbourne Hotel". "Down in the Hole" is easily one of the most intense cuts. An epic lament on "the failure of the will". Armed with an opening lines like, "You ain't seen no tears til you've seen mine", this one's guaranteed to haunt you long after the lights are out.

The last tune is a "Letter from my Father" and it perfectly captures the unspoken, rocking chair wisdom of one's old man, wrestling the mortality of declining years. The kind of song that should earn House the title, "Poet Laureat South of Mason Dixon".

So if you've worn out all your old Dylan records or are seeking a living breathing heir to the HARRY SMITH FOLK ANTHOLOGY, you can't go wrong here. Sure to please fans of Vic Chestnutt and the Stanley Brothers, Tom House is one of those rare songwriters who finger picks with dirt under his nails.

an eerily exhilarating sound.......2000-04-16

Next to Tom House, John Prine sounds like James Taylor. House's rough-edged sound has little to do with "country" music as ordinarily understood and everything to do with the wild Southern string-band sounds documented on 1920s-era 78s recorded long before the phrase "country music" (coined in the 1950s) ever existed. That makes House a folk singer in an old-fashioned sense, an artist who has both carried on the tradition and reinvented it. Though all of the songs here are his own compositions, they channel the spirit of old-time mountain music even as they wed it to House's literate but direct, unpretentious songwriting. The result is an eerily exhilarating sound you feel almost physically. It's a music that, because it holds nothing back, grabs you and hurls you into the lives of its characters: drunks, ramblers, losers, forsaken lovers, and (in the touching "Letter from My Father") a father shyly reconnecting with an errant son. 'Til You've Seen Mine is a triumph from beginning to end, every song a living, breathing presence. Without sounding like any of them, Tom House brings to mind Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen. He's that good. I hope we hear a lot more from this criminally underknown artist.

Better than 90% of what passes for roots music these days!.......2000-03-09

Mr. House is a welcomed alternative to alt-country poseurs and roots music revivalists. His voice and keen eye for detail put him in the company of Dylan, Kristofferson and Nelson (Willie, that is), but his three discs are better than any of their recent work. This is probably his best. My only fret is that he doesn't have a sense of humor.