Artist: Tylor & The Train Robbers
Album: Best of the Worst Kind
Label: Self-released
Release Date: 4.26.2019
Storming out of Boise, Idaho, the Americana band Tylor & The Train Robbers take us back to those early Western days as they celebrate the history of the infamous Black Jack Ketchum, cowboy turned outlaw, and member of the famed Hole-In-The-Wall Gang. History informs us that Ketchum operated out of the same New Mexico hideout as the famous wild bunch led by Butch Cassidy. “Black Jack” is a distant relative of band leader Tylor Ketchum and the inspiration for the band’s name. The release of Best of the Worst Kind comes on the anniversary of Black jack’s hanging. It’s a mix of classic country and Americana, filled with rich narrative tales that in one way, equate the life of an 1800’s train robber to that of a traveling musician.
The quartet consists of Tylor (vocals, rhythm guitar, harmonica), his brother Jason Bushman (bass), Johnny “Shoes” Pisano (lead guitar) and Flip Perkins (drums). The brothers have been playing together since childhood, with the older, more experienced Pisano and Perkins their elders by 40 years or so. Originally from Oregon, the brothers moved to Boise while in their 20’s in search of a music scene. This is their second album, following their 2017 release of Gravel. It’s a family project, not just due to the brothers but because Pisano’s daughter, Jennifer, now Tylor’s fiancée, sings on three tracks too. Tylor’s grandfather, also related to “Black Jack,” did the cover artwork.
The band’s love for the music of the American West is a backdrop for the gifted lyricism of Ketchum who wrote or co-wrote all dozen tunes. The opener “Lost and Lonely Miles” is about feelings of entitlement with lyrics like “Did you take the hard way/Was it the way to go/If you take it too easy on yourself/You might think you’ve got nothing left to know.” The album centerpiece is “The Ballad of Black Jack Ketchum,” comprising a full four pages in the booklet of lyrics, the concluding line (“I was hanged like the best of the worst kind”) spawning the album title. Pisano’s Tennessee Rose Gretch guitar gives the sound a western feel as Tylor in tandem with Pisano do a terrific job building suspense in the tale.
Other highlights include “Hide Your Goat,” fueled by Ketchum’s harmonica and Pisano’s electric lead, is a song born of a guitar, as Ketchum claims, “I am one who believes that when you buy an instrument there are songs inside of it that you couldn’t write otherwise.” “Few and Far Between” features gorgeous duet vocals between Ketchum and Jennifer Pisano, with nice mandolin work from her dad. The closing “Place Like This” features two cellists as Ketchum nods to the figurative “old guy at the end of the bar,” a character seemingly encountered in every town of the tour. We’ve all met this type of character who easily strikes up conversation, but his life is shrouded in mystery. Ketchum offers lines like these in telling the man’s story: “I think we choose who we want to be/Some look to God to set them free/This here bottle does that for me/But what’s that to you.”
Ketchum has an eye for detail, a strong gift for the narrative, and one can easily the sense the family bond in his supportive band. It’s storytelling time set to a bed of enjoyable, rootsy music.
—Jim Hynes
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