Review: Wade Bowen – Somewhere Between the Secret and the Truth

WADE BOWEN – Somewhere Between the Secret and the Truth

He’s a Texas boy. That means he was born with a guitar in his hand, a Buc-ees diaper, and was given three albums from Ray Wylie Hubbard. That’s a Texas thing. 

Bowen got on my radar a few years ago with his album: “Hold My Beer, Vol. 1” …possibly one of the best titles and name for a series. He was working with another Texas dude: Randy Rogers but I don’t think Rogers got Ray Wylie albums when he was born… I think he got music from Townes Van Zandt

What I remember from Hold My Beer was a track saying: “I don’t write hits but I have standards” Hilarious songwriting skills. 

Randy Rogers went on to do a duets album with Texan Robert Earl Keen Jr. It was even more goofy. Capital “G” goofy. They had a fictitious band called The Stryker Brothers and pretended to be coal mine workers. Or something strange. 

I thought I was going to get something goofy like that with Wade Bowen’s “Somewhere Between the Secret and the Truth.” You get clever songwriting for sure … but this is a compliment … but I think the album is too sophisticated for me. Which isn’t too difficult to do.    

Wade Bowen is finding himself in good company. He has a duet with Vince Gill. The King of Class. Mr. Sophistication. Maybe it’s because he’s from Oklahoma!? Bowen is soaring with an Eagle. No pun intended. Bowen co-wrote every track on Somewhere Between the Secret and the Truth. He wrote some stuff with Lori McKenna – that should be a familiar name for anybody who looks at songwriting credits. You don’t have to look deep to find a killer tune written by her. It’s probably the only album where I saw somebody get credited for “Bar Crowd Noise.” That’s some of that classic Bowen humor! Bar noise and song credits also go to Eric Paslay. You’ve heard him on Froggy 98 but not a lot of people know that Paslay writes his own stuff and some of it gets shopped to other groups.

The album is smart. It is more mature than Bowen’s other stuff. This isn’t Texas beer chuggin’ music. Bowen can still be a class clown at times but he has high class with this one. 

Tunes that caught my ear. .
Burnin’ Both Ends of the Bar, that should almost be a duet!
Honky Tonk Roll – turn it up!
Everything Has Your Memory – you’ll hear this one on Froggy
A Guitar, A Singer and A Song – has Vince Gill, the King of Class

Other homework assignments:
Checkout The Stryker Bros.
Vince Gill’s CMA Irving Waugh Award speech
Lori McKenna tunes
Texas Music, especially RWH… just sounds nasty
Rogers and Wade Bowen’s Hold My Beer stuff

You like good tunes? Send me an email: Cory @ Froggy 981 dot com