Jason & the Scorchers,

Reckless Country Soul (Praxis/Mammoth) (**** four stars)

By PARRY GETTELMAN, THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
March 29, 1996 Friday

Copyright 1996-2004 Sentinel Communications Co.

In the early ‘80s, when most of Nashville was going the urban cowboy route, Jason & the Scorchers began cranking out a hopped-up fusion of country and rock ‘n’ roll that carried on the spirit of Hank Williams while appealing to fans of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones. Punkabilly never caught on commercially in the ‘80s, however, and the Scorchers split up after three albums.
Six years after the Scorchers’ swan song, 1989’s Thunder and Fire, roots-rock was enjoying a mini-resurgence and the band came out of retirement. So far, it remains a cult favorite, but at least its reunion produced a new album, last year’s hard-hitting A Blazing Grace. And this year, its label has seen fit to reissue the Scorchers’ long-out-of-print debut EP, Reckless Country Soul, fleshed out with previously unreleased tracks.
Reckless Country Soul was recorded live to four-track back in 1982, just a week after the Scorchers’ first live show. The cuts have plenty of rough edges, but the quartet was already a tight unit, full of fire and vinegar.
The Scorchers’ own “Shot Down Again” and “Broken Whiskey Glass” are terrific, hard-charging rockabilly tunes. Its covers of “I’m So Lonesome (I Could Cry)” and “Jimmie Rodgers’ Last Blue Yodel” still sound startling 14 years later. For the first two verses of the Hank Williams classic, the band lurches along at a funereal pace. Then it lunges into punk-rock overdrive. Its take on Jimmie Rodgers owes an equal debt to Chuck Berry and the Ramones.
The previously unissued tracks are just as good. The Scorchers’ loopy version of “Hello Walls” was originally recorded for Reckless Country Soul while the other five tracks were from the sessions that produced the band’s second EP, 1984’s Fervor. “Help! There’s a Fire” features a descending guitar riff as woozy as a drunk guest about to topple down the basement stairs. The gentle, raggedy, mid-tempo country number “Pray for Me Mama” sounds like a one-song blueprint for Uncle Tupelo. The instrumental that ends the CD isn’t even listed in the credits, but it’s a memorable slice-and-dice guitar rampage.
Rock radio had even less use for this twangy stuff in the early ‘80s than it does now. But while most of the hits from that era sound goofy and dated now, even Jason & the Scorchers’ “rejects” still burn.

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