COUNTRY - Pat Green - Cannonball
Producer: Don Gehman - BNA
Release Date: August 22nd
Pat Green is the kind of accessible artist who can open for Kenny Chesney one night and Dave Matthews Band the next, and he serves up plenty of likeable country rock on his fourth major-label effort. The title cut is Mellencamp-styled Americana that Green’s fans just eat up, and there’s more of the same in the nostalgic “Way Back Texas” and rough-hewn romance of “Love Like That.”
Indeed, Green is a big ol’ romantic at heart, never moreso than on the piano-based ballad “Dixie Lullaby” and a really nice duet with Sara Evans, “Finders Keepers.” He has a hit on his hands with the El Camino road anthem “Feels Just Like It Should,” and he gives one of his best studio performances to date with “Sleeping With the Lights On.”
-RW
XL CD Review: Pat Green, Grupo Fantasma, Ray LaMontagne, Christina Aguilera
Austin-American Statesman - Tuesday, September 5, 2006
Pat Green - "Cannonball" - 3 Stars
On his current hit single, "Feels Just Like It Should," Pat Green sings about reaching that place in life where comfort and righteousness hold the strings of a leaping heart, where hearing "Born To Run" on the car radio elates as it strengthens the sense of finally feeling at home. On this, his 10th album and fourth on a major label, Green is more singer than songwriter, more rising star than expressive artist who happens to be popular. An album is a snapshot of where an artist is musically at the time it was recorded, and Green has never sounded more in focus. There's renewed confidence in his voice; even as he's veered from introspective, guitar-pull-tested material (no Walt Wilkins co-writes here) to go for a snare-popping gloss, Green has never sounded more committed to his lyrics, clichéd though they may be.
Produced by Don Gehman, who helped smooth Green's transition from frat rat to CMT fave with 2003's "Wave On Wave" and also helmed 2004's somewhat disappointing "Lucky Ones," the new album finds singer and producer gelling like a quarterback/receiver tandem in their third season together. Basically, Green has given up the ghost — of Jerry Jeff Walker. On "Cannonball," he sounds more inspired by Darius Rucker or former touring mate Kenny Chesney. When Green moved from Austin to Fort Worth to raise his growing family nearer to relatives, he traded romantic Texas road-trip tunes for finely crafted radio fodder and pleasing heartland rockers such as "Virginia Belle" and the title track. Maturation isn't always the best career move, especially when most of your audience is still in school, but in Green's case, it's an upgrade.
At 14 tracks, the CD's too long. Green, Gehman and their A-team of Nashville studio players should've called it an album after "I'm Tryin' To Find It," the strongest track, in the 11th slot. Still, this is Green's best recording to date because he's realized that wearing his heart on his sleeves doesn't fit him as well as cufflinks.
— Michael Corcoran
Pat Green's Cannonball Takes Flight
First-Week Album Sales Propel BNA Records Collection to #2 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums, as Pat Rocks Kimmel
Nashville, TN – Superstar tours with Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban, and The Dave Matthews Band; rave reviews; sold-out stadiums; and the undeniable groove of hit single, “Feels Just Like It Should” all helped light the fuse for the explosive arrival of Cannonball, the BNA Records debut from Texas fave and three-time Grammy nominee, Pat Green. With first-week sales approaching 38,000, Cannonball blew a hole in the #2 slot on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart and rocked into the Top 20 on the Billboard 200 all-genre chart. The momentum behind the disc, further fueled by a performance on Tuesday’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, launched Cannonball to an impressive first-week sales jump of more than 20% over Green’s prior release, 2004’s Lucky Ones, and scored a #1 debut on SoundScan’s Digital Albums country chart.
The passionate energy of the music-packed, 14-track, Don Gehman-produced disc delivers what Green’s die-hard fans already know, with praise from such outlets as the Associated Press, Esquire and People which declared, “Pat Green is the Bruce Springsteen of the Southwest: He’s passionate, expressive and engaging.”
Hailed by USA Today as “the heartland rocker that country music has needed for years,” Green is currently on the road with upcoming dates in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, as well as a New York stop on September 6th as Pat headlines Irving Plaza with support from BNA labelmates, The Lost Trailers.
For more information, check out www.patgreen.com.
Green's "Cannonball" may finally propel him to mainstream stardom
By MICHAEL McCALL
Aug 21, 2006
Associated Press
Pat Green, "Cannonball" (BNA)
Two years ago, when Pat Green scored a big hit with the song "Wave on Wave," he
appeared ready to leap from the Texas underground to country music's mainstream.
But momentum faltered, and the rowdy singer-songwriter returned to playing
arenas in the Southwest and opening concerts for superstars across the rest of
the country.
"Cannonball," his first album since moving to BNA Records, is an obvious attempt
to streamline his sprawling, roots-rock style for the masses. For the most part,
it succeeds. The gregarious Texan's words are punchier, and his arrangements
more concise, giving more oomph to songs that retain the positive outlook and
philosophical bent of his past work.
Green's middle American populism and his guitar crunch are reminiscent of John
Mellencamp, a trait brought out by producer Don Gehman, who worked with
Mellencamp during his heyday. Songs like "Cannonball" and the first single,
"Feels Like It Should," are propulsive country-rock fist-pumpers, while "Love
Like That" and "Way Back Texas" are mid-tempo sing-alongs that merge Nashville
craft with Green's bohemian spirit.
Green has been expected to explode as the next country music star for years now.
"Cannonball" might finally provide the firepower he's needed.
Contemporary country time
Feels Just Like It Should, Pat Green: Another great summertime single -– and it’s looking more and more as if it’ll be Green’s big breakthrough. Love the way the piano player quotes Born to Run in the first verse. Album: Cannonball.
Country: Pat Green, Cannonball (* * * out of four)
Taking his own path since the start of his career, Pat Green has gained a Texas-based following that most of Nashville’s country singers would envy. But he intends on making an even bigger splash with Cannonball. Single Feels Just Like It Should announces intentions of Springsteenian magnitude — right down to the piano player quoting the famous guitar riff from Born to Run. Green brings in big-voiced Sara Evans for a duet and covers more outside material than ever before. But whether he’s singing about misty-eyed nostalgia in Way Back Texas or social optimism in Learn How to Live, Green’s choruses are larger than life, making him sound less like a cult favorite and more like the heartland rocker that country music has needed for years.
By Andy Langer
September 2006, Volume 146, Issue 3
TEXAS JUST MIGHT SAVE NASHVILLE. Not since Creed and Limp Bizkit have we seen a more atrocious and insulting double play than Big & Rich and Gretchen Wilson. But "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk" notwithstanding, Nashville's nothing if not resilient. This summer's best country singles, Jack Ingram's "Wherever You Are" and Pat Green's "Feels Just Like It Should," aren't hokey one-liners, just great pop songs disguised as country hits. Ingram's Live Wherever You Are offers no shortage of real-deal hooks and charisma, while Green's Cannonball suggests Jimmy Buffet may not be the only one with a key to Margaritaville. Put 'em together and it sounds like the start of a revolution.
Green's latest should appeal to a wide audience
By SHIRLEY JINKINS
Ft Worth Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Texas singer-songwriter Pat Green's new CD, Cannonball, will be available in stores Tuesday.
Texas-music icon Pat Green's new release, Cannonball, should broaden his already substantial audience; any listeners still on the fence can find at least a few of these 14 selections to love. The CD is due in stores Tuesday. While there are some artistic stretches here for the hard-rocking Green, much of the album showcases what he does best: upfront guitar songs with a driving beat and everyman lyrics that strike a chord with his countrymen and women.
Green co-wrote eight of the songs, with other credits ranging from Matraca Berg on Finders Keepers to fellow Tex-music notable Radney Foster on Love Had Something to Say. The peak is the timeless Dixie Lullaby, which Green co-wrote with Patrick Davis and Justin Andrew Pollard,. is a father-son ballad so touching it could be a hymn.
If that's too sweet, I'm Trying to Find It combines bittersweet lyrics and a lifetime of everyday regret with stark, unsentimental music akin to some of Trace Adkins' best work. There is quite a bit of emotion and soul-searching in even the most hip-swinging rockers on Green's new work. Davis and Pollard also wrote Love Like That, about young lust grown into something deeper.
Green gets a chance to duet with Sara Evans on Finders Keepers, a song that is lower and slower than his comfort zone, yet soaring with the addition of Evans' voice. But what would this type of country-roots album be without at least one song based on a really good lyrical hook? This one's called Way Back, Texas about a town with that name, "population: you and me." Gosh, that's Waylon-worthy.
The overall mood of Cannonball is a sultry night in the Stockyards, the taste of cold beer and an outdoor concert stage adrift in a sea of spectators.
Pat Green's music is like that.
GRADE: B+
