Jesse Hunter’s 1994 BNA Records debut album, A Man Like Me, is noteworthy for the unexpected depth and grip-strength of its confidence. Given the commanding resonance and country-blues moan of his vocals, it tracks that Hunter came out of the Memphis club scene. What’s more, Muscle Shoals stalwart Barry Beckett is the producer here, lending even more strength to the unexpected country-soul impact of this underappreciated and over-looked album from country music’s golden era.
Hunter wrote or co-wrote seven of the nine songs on the record. When he co-wrote, he got to do so with other writers like Kent Blazy (“If Tomorrow Never Comes”), Craig Wiseman (“The Good Stuff”), and Rory Michael Bourke (“The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”). When covering others, he gets a crack at an Allen Shamblin song and a Max D. Barnes number. Hunter charted three singles from this album; “Born Ready.” “By the Way She’s Lookin’,” and “Long Legged Hannah (From Butte, Montana).” Respectively, they charted at #56, #65, and #42. Hunter fell prey to Nashville’s bigger stars on the charts and he never left any lasting signs to track a career. He never had the hit his talent suggests he deserved.
It is too easy to compare Hunter’s voice to Johnny Cash’s famous baritone-bass. Yes, Hunter can hit the low notes, as evidenced by “We Discovered Fire” and “Long Steady Rain.” but his baseline vocal timbre is more sinuous and rangy than Cash’s; it is more bluesy and nimble than ragged. His voice is exceedingly well matched to his material, perhaps never more so than with the autobiographical “Between The Country And the Blues.” Just as significantly, Hunter brings a “weathered insight to a classic country hook.” I think one of the most impressive aspects of Hunter’s album as a whole is just how comfortable and competent he sounds throughout for a Nashville first-timer. His performances ring with a world-weary wisdom and weight. This never sounded like a first album to my ears.
He also had the muscle of Nashville’s ’90’s A-Team backing him in the studio, from Eddie Bayers on drums to Michael Rhodes on the bass to Brent Rowan on guitar to Beckett on the keyboards to Paul Franklin on the steel guitar to Glen Duncan on the fiddle. Dennis Wilson and Harry Stinson provided background vocals.
There is something of an early Trace Adkins to Hunter’s direct and intense singing on his one and only Nashville recording. It is muscular an playful. “Born Ready” sounds like a slum-dunk, radio-ready hit from the early nineties. Similarly, “By the Way She’s Lookin’” should have sparkled and shone as a single. Instead, it sank like a stone. “Long Legged Hannah (From Butte, Montana)” sounds as goofy and frisky as a Shawn Camp composition with lines like “She’s a bedroom mechanic and barroom queen” to “She’s got the moves of a washing machine.” By all rights, it should have broke him.
I guess, in its own way, it did. In an era when everyone on Music Row was ready for the next big thing, BNA Records must have believed they had discovered fire with Hunter, Instead, a long steady rain of under-performing singles smothered any chance of a musical spark flaring up into a heater on the charts. Hunter was done as a recording artist with this one album, as promising as it was.
Hunter apparently gathered up the pieces of his life after A Man Like Me, and carried on elsewhere to find his own peace of mind.
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