Real Things

Product Description

It's been five years since Joe Nichols took country music by storm, staking his own unique claim to time-honored tradition with his unforgettable debut single, "The Impossible." Today, Nichols is well established as one of country's most familiar and unforgettable voices.
With his third CD, Real Things, Nichols has outdone himself once again, crafting a record that, song-for-song, performance-for performance, never lets up and never lets go. With the debut single "Another Side Of You" already igniting at radio, Nichols fans are getting a taste of what's to come - a country album full of real songs, sung by a real artist, who's always been and always will be all about nothing but the REAL THINGS.

Amazon.com

On his fourth album, Joe Nichols has ample opportunity to showcase his vocal subtlety and soulfulness, which weren't much in evidence on his novelty smash "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off." The acoustic arrangements and largely midtempo material puts the emphasis throughout on his weathered baritone, as Nichols balances his sensitive side--on the romantic "Another Side of You" and "She's All Lady" and the heartbreak "All Good Things"--with his good-ol'-boy side, on the uptempo "Comin' Back in a Cadillac," the anti-busybody "It Ain't No Crime" and the barroom singalong of "Let's Get Drunk and Fight" (a cut that recalls a notorious early Jimmy Buffett song). The bittersweet balladry of "My Whiskey Years" is reflective of the album's uncommon emotional depth, while the closing "If I Could Only Fly" (by the late Austin cult hero Blaze Foley) shows the artist's range. --Don McLeese

Review

Critics' Choice New CDs By THE NEW YORK TIMES
JOE NICHOLS "Real Things" (Universal Records South)
A year and a half ago Joe Nichols topped the country chart with "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off." No points for guessing the general thrust; it was a drinking song. But he sang it slowly and tenderly, with a rueful chuckle. When he sighed, "She might come home in a tablecloth/Yeah, tequila makes her clothes fall off," it was hard not to think of the guy left behind, waiting for his lady to return.
You can hear more of that melancholy on Mr. Nichols's new album, "Real Things." This time around, the drinking song is called, "Let's Get Drunk and Fight," and it pays affectionate tribute to a volatile couple: "Have another piña colada, get good and tore down/And if you need a piñata, well, you can kick me around." At the end revelers whoop and holler, and you can't tell whether they're egging him on or making fun of him.
At a time when many young country singers aspire to rock stardom, Mr. Nichols is something of an anomaly. He prefers small gestures to big ones, and "Real Things" is full of elegant, understated songs full of charming details. In the title track, at the beginning, he extols the simple life, singing, "Rainy days, I love 'em, I always have." Then, near the end of the album, in "All I Need Is a Heart," he revises the thought: "Don't need another rainstorm," he sings, sounding sad and slightly peeved. (How could anyone sing about rainy days at a time like this?)
A judicious pause here, a half-swallowed word there: choices like that convey the charming impression that Mr. Nichols knows more than he is letting on; when he delivers a shameless pun ("If I wanna kick back and kill/A little time, it ain't no crime"), you can picture his sheepish grin. The one song he helped write, "The Difference Is Night and Day," is a well-made weeper, and the CD ends on a pleasingly old-fashioned note: Lee Ann Womack joins him to sing "If I Could Only Fly," a Blaze Foley song previously recorded by Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. Wouldn't it be a satisfying surprise if it turned out that this low-key singer had made the year's best country album?
KELEFA SANNEH
Excerpts from "Real Things", on joenichols.com -- NY Times, August 27, 2007

About the Artist

Real Things, Joe Nichols' fourth album for Universal Records South, is thirteen songs about loss and victory, depression and transcendence, fleetingness and permanence, grit and grace, love and fighting. The collection presents the 30-year-old native of Rogers, Arkansas at the top of his vocal game.
Founded in the neo-traditional country styles Nichols reclaimed on Man with a Memory, his 2002 label debut, the music -- produced by Universal Records South President Mark Wright and Nichols' longtime musical collaborator Brent Rowan -- restricts itself only to Nichols' own notions of the real and the right. This is classic country from a singer who loves to tap the style's capacities for deep seriousness and deep fun. These songs, rooted and free, are something to hear.
"This is the only thing I cook," Nichols said recently, walking onto the front porch of his house in the country north of Nashville, carrying a glass of limeade he had just assembled with fresh limes. In t-shirt and workout shorts, he sat down on his porch swing, kicked off his Crocs, and began t, ISBN13: B000SM7R7E ISBN10: B000SM7R7E Material Type: audioCD