Baste the rough-and-tumble twang of Bakersfield with some of Nashville’s radio-smart songwriting, and you’ve got Gary Allan’s favorite recipe. The California singer is a master of the bad-boy ballad, the tearjerker, and the straight-talking, bar-stool story song. And Rodney Crowell-style, these classic country modes occasionally merge with rock and roll throughout Allan’s seven-disc catalog, which includes the much-celebrated Smoke Rings in the Dark.
Last heard on 2005’s Tough All Over, Allan mines the darkness beneath the swagger of the country-boy persona. Themes of self-destruction, vulnerability, addiction, and failed love frame a gritty reality. The bet here is that for all the Nashville gloss associated with mainstream country music, it’s Allan’s West Coast, roadhouse side that shines onstage.
This article appears in Nov 15-21, 2006.