Keeping the faith

Weary but hopeful, Charlie Sexton keeps his head up

Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News

Published November 21, 2005 at midnight

Text size

More Music

More stories »

Charlie Sexton fans have spent the past decade in a weird limbo.

He's everywhere - touring in Bob Dylan's band and playing guitar on his album Love and Theft, contributing production work on albums by the likes of Lucinda Williams.

But his last solo album was 1995's Under the Wishing Tree.

The fans' patience has paid off: Cruel and Gentle Things is in stores now. The album is not only the finest of Sexton's career but one of the best of 2005. It's 10 sketches of life, looking at the world from weary but hopeful eyes.

"I just really had to believe every word. Rhyming was not enough for me anymore, by any means," Sexton says in a phone call from his Austin, Texas, home.

The performer was looking at doing something more varied, in the vein of Wishing Tree, but "I just finally gave up on that," he says. "I discovered I was basically writing the same kind of song for 10 years. I take that as an indication that this is what I do."

The songs on the album deal with a variety of situations but have a thread running through them, one of faith and keeping on, even if you can't see the goal.

"It's definitely there. Things can be a little rough at times in all kinds of ways. My take on it is, you gotta figure out a way to keep on and look for something. I juxtapose that more than I probably should, but it seems to apply to so many situations - hence the title, as well, of the record," says Sexton, who plays Tuesday at the Belly Up in Aspen and Wednesday at Quixote's True Blue.

"The country is completely spoiled. We're headed somewhere that I don't think anybody really realizes. I don't know where it's going, but it's looking kind of strange.

"It's the cliché of looking at history, you'll see the future. It all comes back around. Humans, most people - we've all to varying degrees made the same mistakes over and over again. They date back to who knows when. There's only so many ways to (mess) up. People seem to keep finding them. All the mistakes in the world reoccur, and most of them are biblical."

An Austin guitar legend, Sexton issued his first album at 16 and hung with the city's legendary musicians before going on to form the Arc Angels. That lasted just one album. His solo output has been slow in coming, with just four albums to his name.

The songs make up for it. Regular Grind was co-written with Sexton's brother Will for an album that didn't pan out. The phrase was on a coffee cup, and Sexton turned it into a meditation on the hardships of life - people going through the regular grind of work and getting along in life. In its choruses, Sexton wonders whether someone or something out there is purposely making life harder for people, be it poverty, the government, Satan or whatever.

"It's easy to feel like there's somebody out there - and sometimes there is. A co-worker who wants your desk. Somebody who wants your wife. Someone who wants your dog, whatever it is. I'm not a conspiracy theorist by any means. I'm just putting the question out there," Sexton says.

Dillingham Lane, written with Steve Earle, has a sense of regret and hard-earned wisdom.

"That was a nice moment - when you write something that's heartfelt and it becomes a universal thing and people tell you it means something to them," Sexton says.

You walk a fine line when you write something that's personal in your life, he says. People like Chris Martin of Coldplay get called out for whining, though "it doesn't bug me, to be honest with you," Sexton says. "I believe that guy was telling the truth for him.

"Certain songs are regional experiences. Sunday Clothes (from the Wishing Tree album) - it's a Southern kind of experience. I'm sure people in Boston went to church, but it wasn't as hot, it wasn't as hellfire-and-brimstone. Maybe it was a similar experience."

Once in a While is a cheerful tune about a lingering heartache.

"Some of it was really intentional. Some of it was accidental. One day I came up with that chorus, just the melody and a music part. The juxtapose of shadow and light was intentional. I couldn't just sing 'zip-a-dee-doo-dah' over it. That's one of the things I observed from hearing Dylan records," Sexton says, citing Tangled Up in Blue as an upbeat song where "he very stealthily said some pretty heavy things."

While Sexton is hitting the road with Shannon McNally (his band will back both artists on the tour), don't expect to see much of him.

"The studio is really my favorite place to be. That's why I got into more production work. It's a great challenge. It's a great gig to have. Every person I choose to work with I choose very specifically," he says.

"Touring is fine, but for me records are the thing. That's the legacy everyone leaves behind."

Brownm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2674

Subscribe to the Rocky Mountain News