Written by: Dave Cantrell
In this review-writing gig sometimes – OK, most times – you get what you more or less expected, in other instances something a bit beyond while in others you’re hit with a tinge of disappointment. Then you have the Willie Niles of the world (rare as they are), singular, unabashed, ripping with confidence even as they ride an undercurrent that honestly acknowledges the many forces that outwardly or otherwise make this ride through this mortality loop-de-loop a ‘to say the least’ challenge for every fucking one of us. In short, in a world of obviously dubious hype machine-driven ‘real things,’ New York-based Willie Nile is, and has been for decades, the real real thing full-stop, a truth The Great Yellow Light makes abundantly clear and does so immediately.
“Wild Wild World” opens proceedings with a brash statement of purpose – it’s chorus’s third line even echoing “The Kids Are Alright” just to make the point clear – that leaves one not only pleasingly shell-shocked but as well teed up for the album entire. Then, as purely driven by indefatigable joy as anything I can remember hearing in yonks, next track “We Are, We Are” exudes every level of presence as its title suggests and in fact if any movement is searching for it’s ‘won’t stand down’ anthem, well, search no more. Especially as next up comes “Electrify Me” that comes on like undiminished power-pop that has aged but not grown old and I’d use the word ‘matured’ were it not too laden with its implications of ‘settled’ or, lord forfend, ‘mellowed.’ Uh uh, not here, not Willie, just…no. What we hear here is way way too forcefully at ease with itself to ever back down into a pensioner’s groove, which with this guy is something that can apparently always be counted on.
Past the keening sway of “An Irish Goodbye,” a celebratory jaunt that deftly swaps the maudlin with the sweet (and – no small ‘and’ – features Irish legend Paul Brady, part of a sterling guest list that also includes the likes of Steve Earle, David Mansfield, Waddy Wachtel and a dozen essential others) we happen upon the title track. Emerging gently enough, “The Great Yellow Light” builds itself from earnest, aspirational love song into a piece of wonder that has the word ‘classic’ cascading about its every beat and syllable, to the point that that goosebump-raising reaction we all pretty much live for is guaranteed.
And so it goes, romping through the tongue-in-cheek but oh-so-serious rocker “Trying to Make a Livin’ in the USA” that takes the perennial musician’s economic lament and gives it a party to rock its blues away, through “What Color is Love,” piano-based and drenched in yearning, hope, and a searing honesty to the Steve Earle-guesting “Wake Up America,” the plaintive tone lent the lyric as much plea as restive demand and that’s not all of ’em as we’re leaving a couple gems for your discovery seeing as, by now, we cannot but believe you’ve already fired up your device of choice and ordered the thing.
In any case, know this: what’s never lost here is the deep sincerity of purpose and emotion that limns this entire album, suffusing one’s ears not to mention one’s heart with an honesty of belief, in craft, in life, in a hope that runs unstoppable in our veins even in times when events lead us to believe it’s run dry. “Never,” the spirit of this record says, “never.”
And now for the ‘genuine regret’ confession-of-a-sort that my own honesty demands: since that original debut in 1980 (which your correspondent owned for a too-short time), through ten studio and four live albums, Mr. Nile’s work has eluded my radar. I can only cop to the too common if wholly understandable ‘y’cant hear everything’ defense that, said understanding aside, cannot itself ameliorate the regret about that which this new record has brought to the fore. However, on the plus side, I have The Great Yellow Light to thank for unlocking a too-long locked door. In sum, and not to be too cute about it, I’m grateful to have opened before me an opportunity to float, with keen curiosity, down this particular Nile.
