On Our Way: A Review of Kurt Lee Wheeler’s Album
Inside the On Our Way album cover, Kurt Lee Wheeler says, “With ears to hear, the listener can find hints of betrayal, self-incrimination, robust faith, doubting faith, failure, celebration, love lost, love requited, lasting love celebrated, passion for life …the cycle of life”. I couldn’t say it better myself, but I can try to expound. My hope is that sharing what I hear might inspire others to listen and/or listen more deeply.
If life were easy, we wouldn’t have heroes. If it were simple, we wouldn’t need artists.
Kurt Lee Wheeler’s album On Our Way is the result of the triad of a perfectionist’s technical precision, a philosopher’s conviction, and an artist’s unique envisionment of composition to tell a story in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
The album opens with a church organ quickly followed by an outlaw country bang. It’s a clue that you’re gonna get some preaching like you done never heard before.
Something I Said slides right into this peppy tempo. However, the intermittent pauses and acapella moments of the chorus masterfully underscore the uncertainty and feeling of aloneness that come from not understanding what happened when things fall apart, not knowing whether or you are at fault or not, and, if so, what you did: Was it something I said was it something I said? /Now I'm hanging by a thread from all that I see now I feel, I've feel I’ve been misread….I don't know……what else to do…..what else to do…
If the first song communicates the singer’s own confusion, Faces is a confession and apology on behalf of himself and other men to all the sweethearts (like you, Dylan would say) whose hearts they misled: I think I saw you as a prize…With all of my stories you couldn’t see past...all my lies.
And with that self-conviction comes a need for guidance: 83, 53, 23 is a straight-forward old-style country song narrative that reminds us that people who have come before and lived simple lives, are often the heroes we need to emulate. They’ve seen it all, dealt with hardships, kept trucking, and tried to do the right thing. If Garth Brooks waffles on whether it was worth it or not (The Dance), Kurt states his conviction loud and clear: I won’t leave this world with trying and I won’t leave this world without crying.
17 Forever is the music version of Friday Night Lights, a more wholesome version of Seger’s Night Moves, a wider lens on Mellencamp’s Jack and Diane, and a prequel to Springsteen’s Glory Days. It reminds us that there is joy in life, however fleeting. Appreciate the now.
And in Til Death is the End , Kurt ties it all together: Joy will inevitably end, but love anyway: This one makes a perfect first dance song at a wedding: Long have I waited to kneel down beside you/Long have I waited to ask for your hand/to tell you I love you and forever be faithful /long will I love you until death is the end. In addition to the lyrics, the keys near the end help to make this song special.
My interest was first piqued in Kurt’s work when I heard a live version of Idol’s Rebel Yell. The fifth song on the album is stunningly beautiful and deeply soulful, reducing Idol’s pre-techno version to hyperactive teen karaoke. At first, I couldn’t understand how this cover - different in genre, style, and tone - found its way right smack in the middle of a collection of original work. Then I got it. It’s the minor key in that existential puzzle of why we want more of what makes us miserable: the rebel yell being a “yes” to love and to life. Its placement is perfect, actually.
Cherokee County was co-written by Barbara Evelyn Tippens is a love letter to “home”. The increased in tempo and volume and Jim Van Cleve’s sweet violin strings lifting up the main melody compliment the lyrics: Soar over those mountains/with the sacred mounds below/above the creeks and the hilltops. We are where we come from, it says, not just our people but the places, too.
But Somehow it Ended tells us that: relationships end, people die, and we don’t know why. Think how it ended and all there is to say/Yeah, I wish things’d been different/I wish we had it our way.
On Our Way brings all this wisdom together, and is another one in which I hear as a hit song, particularly because of its punchy chorus. At first, I couldn’t figure out why this was not the final song on the album, sending us on our merry way. But then I got it: We can’t do this stuff on our own.
And so, Reckless Abandon. We see how, when we’re at the end of our rope, due to love, loss, self-incrimination, and confusion that we can return to the Creator for help: Choking on life’s dust/Oh God reach down and Lift the head of your friend/Worries and fears made my heart grow cold. The last song ends on its knees, just like we need to. It’s my favorite song of all.
The album ends in a quick church organ slide down the octave, echoing in reverse the beginning and enclosing what’s within.
A significant amount of time, money, and heart must have gone into this album. Bobby Titolo (South Shadow Studios) mixed, with mastering done by Grammy winner Jim Van Cleve. The effect forefronts the dominant human and musical voices and brings forth the varied tones, tempos, and intonations of the supporting players. The support players took this album to the next level: slide guitar between the vocals brings the message to heart, and violin lifts up phrases and intensifies the emotive power of the lyrics.
Kurt gives us an honest glimpse of a bruised, broken, and beautiful heart who has kept on keeping on, realized who he is and what he believes, owned his mistakes, decided that he’s going to love and live fully- even if he can’t figure it all out, even if it hurts- and then humbly asking for help. In sharing his subjective experience, he paradoxically communicates the universal one. On Our Way is the perfect name for this album. Listen to it with your ears and heart open, and you will come away renewed and refreshed as you continue your journey.
Kurt Lee Wheeler is artist in residence at Reformation Brewery.
