Joe Fournier   Dirt Road Joyride Dust cd 27 The Wreck Of Tammy Whelan – Real Cool Car – I Drive A Wreck – Bad Record Collection – Real Cool Car – Stone Cold Heart – You’re Still Everywhere – Juanita Dog Walk – Thumbful – Sang Like A Bird – She’s My Speed – Bigger Than Actual Size “Dirt Road Joyride” is Joe Fournier’s fourth album and he plays almost all instruments on it, just helped for a couple of songs by a dobro and a fiddle player. Fournier simply plays American music with soul and sincerity, just a man, his roots and his songs. You’ll find some elements of John Fogerty here, an intonation of Bruce Springteen there a bit of blues and a good dose of Bakersfield everywhere. The songs are very well crafted with melodies that hook you from the start and perfectly written texts. You won’t find weird turn or words you never use in your everyday life, this are simple words straight from the heart, like his music. These are also the hardest to use but when you’re successful you come close to classics like Chuck Berry, John Fogerty or Dave Alvin. There’s also plenty of humour in his songs like “Bad Record Collection” in which Joe complains about his girl and her bad taste when it comes to music. With lyrics like “all that top 10 fluff goes to work on my libido/turns my kingbee to the size of a mosquito/even though she’s standin’ there/dressed in nothin’ but her long blond hair” it’s a killer. I could also quote “Bigger Than Actual Size” which is hilarious too “…a little botox here, a little silicone there/ was like the exorcist with Linda Blair/ she wanna make it bigger than actual size” and further in the song these line that sums up perfectly the Nashville way of making music “it was a Fender champ and a nice Tele / clean as a whistle you could feel it in the belly / the producer frowned, we gotta get that sound / like the truck commercial and the boys uptown / they took a rack of gear, you could hardly hear / that sweet tele twang just disappeared…”. And if he can make you laugh he’s able to make you cry the following minute, just listen to “Sang Like A Bird”. Anyway, I could go on for hours but you just have to know that Joe Fournier is the real deal. Joe's website Fred "Virgil" Turgis