Two of the more important experiences I had in college were discovering Two Cow Garage and discovering printmaking. When I visited Nashville last summer, stopping by Hatch Show Print was a no-brainer. Hatch Show Print is one of the original print shops that created woodblock prints advertising concerts for country’s earliest artists and, eventually, its royalty. It’s easily the coolest thing in downtown Nashville. The studio prominently displays its posters, and I was pleasantly surprised to find an advertisement for Nudie’s first album, Remember This.
But Nudie’s approach to marketing is very much like his music: rooted in tradition. I felt the best songs on Remember This were those that combined Nudie’s timeless country voice with 21st-century themes, such as the despairing “Sex Kisses.” These songs will jar the listener’s sense of time.
Nudie’s second go-round, Everything’s Different in the Night, takes a more conservative approach. Other than a reference to smoking weed in “It Ain’t Gonna Happen Today,” these songs could easily have been written at any point in the last 60 (possibly 70?) years. Nudie reminds us, though, that even with the invention of the smart phones, heartache and loneliness never change. Story songs like “The Royal Tavern” and “Hearts & Flowers” display Nudie’s excellent command when it comes to lyricism, but it’s the songs about truly intimate moments, like “Everything’s Different in the Night,” that’ll tug your heart strings and jerk some of your tears.