In the nearly 25 years that have passed since I first listened to Shannon Lawson’s debut album Chase the Sun, I am still undecided if it is one of the coolest and most original albums of its era or just another one of the many banal, generic, and false recordings Nashville was turning out back in 2002.
As way of quick history, Lawson was signed to MCA Nashville by Tony Brown and Bruce Hinton. Lawson was in Nashville on a publishing deal with the Extreme Writers Group which was formed in part by Tim DuBois in 2000. Lawson earned that Music City writing-deal through his work in Louisville, Kentucky with a band named the Galoots. Founded in 1993, The Galoots were a bluegrass-based band that was unafraid to incorporate rock, traditional country, and blues influences into their sound. The Galoots recorded two albums,Ham Days and Record. Lawson was the lead vocalist and played guitar for the band who played to sold out shows in Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. Before that, while in university, Lawson played local Louisville clubs with a Chicago blues man named Top Hat.
Back in Nashville in 2002, record producer Mark Wright threw his hat into the record ring after hearing some of Lawson’s demo tapes. Wright said, “I love making records on great singers; that’s my whole deal…Shannon just blew me away. We met for lunch, talked it over, and I walked away knowing I wanted to work with this kid…who played in a bluegrass band in Kentucky and a blues band in Chicago.” “He can sing country and R&B. I wanted to give him the freedom to experiment with all those different styles,” said Wright.
Given you are reading about this in a Flashback post and did not see it in the feature celebrating Every No.1 Single of the 2000s, you already know that Lawson’s much anticipated debut album largely flopped at radio upon release, despite Lawson being hand selected by Tony Brown and produced by Mark Wright at MCA Nashville. The debut single “Goodbye on a Bad Day” reached #28 on the charts but the follow up release “Dream Your Way to Me” stalled at #45.
That stumbling start was failure enough for MCA to drop Lawson from his deal, evidence of just how short the Nashville runway was at that point for emerging country artists. In 2004, Lawson would record an unreleased album Big Yee-Haw for Equity Music Group in a label started by Clint Black.With his debut, I still wonder if Lawson was unable to focus the outrageous depth and range of his live musical experience, or if Nashville didn’t know what do with the results when he actually did on Chase the Sun.
Of his first album, Lawson said, “I want my music to represent what I do live, which is really rock ‘n’ roll bluegrass. People seem to love it because it’s earthy, simple and it rocks.”
And that is the sonic appeal of the album. It has this wonderful acoustic undercurrent, full of bright dobro, mandolin, fiddle, and banjo, with rolling waves of big vocals crashing along the surface of each crunching instrumental performance. It is curious and inviting blend of bluegrass, R&B, and rock. At times it sounds funky and loose, but at others it just sounds unnecessarily loud and over-produced. I shouldn’t be surprised, because Lawson celebrates that he is “gonna live as long and loud as he can” in the title track.
Lawson apparently had a month straight in a studio to experiment with sounds and songs while recording the album. He co-wrote ten of the eleven tracks.
The highlight of the album is “Are You Happy Now,” a pleading and urgent phone-call song about a lover who needs to know if his ex is happy post break-up. The dramatic rises and falls of the conversational lyrics are well served by Lawson’s almost-crazed vocal performance. It starts quietly and sweetly, only to explode with barely contained doubt, anger, and regret, The song is intense, soaring, and captivating. It is a great song and performance.
A hidden a cappella gospel track at albums end is just as mesmerizing for its restraint and earthy elegance. Lawson sounds amazing singing, backed only by his own hand claps.
“Who’s Your Daddy” goes everywhere we were afraid Toby Keith would go with his 2025 number one hit of the same name. Lawson’s song is a beautiful raunchy and lascivious mess. It is sexy and sleazy, full of posturing and bravado. The song is slippery and seductive. The narrator assures his target, that he is “the good, the bad, the ugly, everything between.” You either want to turn this one off or turn it up.
I remember “Goodbye on a Bad Day” really standing out and sounding great on the radio in 2002. I bought the CD based upon its emotional impact, The listener enters the story as a wedding ring is being slipped off a finger and the rest of the lyrics capture the unravelling of a day gone all wrong and straight to hell. The chorus reminds me of those from Ricky Van Shelton’s “Where the Tall Grass Grows” where the narrator describes the grotesque things he would rather do than face what has been lost. Oddly, it also sounded like the narrator from Gary Allan’s “Her Man” if he had waited too long to change his ways of doing things around here.
The album ends with a bluegrass cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get it on.” Ron Block plays the banjo, Jerry Douglas is on the dobro, and Chris Thile plays the mandolin. It is a thematic and sonic anchor to a surprisingly sexy collection of songs about both dreams and forbidden fruits that push and pull the listener in unexpected directions.
Yet, here I am still wondering if Shannon Lawson’s sound was too big for the moment or if the moment was too big for Shannon Lawson.
I’ve gotta know!
I remember seeing the video for “Goodbye on a Bad Day” at the gym once and thinking this guy had what it took. He feels like he was a predecessor to the extremes the MuzikMafia brought in 2005, so it makes sense that they’d cross paths. And you can’t go wrong if you’re putting Chris Thile on your record.
I still can’t find the studio version of his Equity Records single “Smokin’ Grass” anywhere, just a live performance, a karaoke cover, and Billy Yates’ original version. I remain amazed that there are songs that charted in the 21st century that genuinely cannot be listened to by anyone anymore.
I remember 2002 being the year when the charts slowed to the pace of molasses. I didn’t like the trajectory of the music generally but the fact that you could listen to the countdown four weeks in a row and basically nothing moved sent me fleeing to the exits even more than the trend lines of the music.
I really enjoyed “Goodbye on a Bad Day” when I heard it on radio in the summer of 2002, and I kept thinking that if the charts EVER MOVED the song might get a little momentum. If the song came out even one or two years earlier, I think it might have gotten the spurt of momentum it needed, but by 2002 the gatekeepers decided they were gonna cut the number of songs we were allowed to listen to by 25% and that was that.