Greg Trooper

The Back Shop Live – 2007

4 of 5 stars - 'Nashville Tennessean reviews 'Greg Trooper the BackShop Live
"...a night that was more entertaining than most of our big-ticket, tour bus-riding artists are able to deliver."
Peter Cooper, Staff Writer Nashville Tennessean

* 4 of 5 stars - Ctl.Alt.Country
"...this one is completely on his own, just a man and his guitar. And, it works wonderfully well!"
Benny Metten

* Country Standard Time
"Trooper shines from start to finish in the vein of Guy Clark, John Hiatt, Tim Easton or Kevin Welch."
Jason MacNeil Country Standard Time

C - Nashville Tennessean

10-2005
Nashville Scene's best of 2005
BEST AMERICANA ALBUM: Greg Trooper's, 'Make it Through This World'
"This native of New Jersey has been making journeyman folk-rock records ever since he moved to town more than a decade ago. On his best album yet, his lyrics gain in detail and poetic feel, and are only deepened by the relaxed warmth of his vocals and simmering soul of his record’s arrangements. Trooper has been on a run since 2000, and Make It Through This World suggests he’s getting better as he goes." —Michael McCall - Nashville Scene's best of 2005

Uncut 6/2005
Make It Through This World
4 stars
Jersey-born Greg Trooper's cut some exceptional solo records. With Dan Penn producing, this eclipses them all- a laconic country-soul masterpiece with hope and grit nestled into its eloquent storytelling. - Luke Yorn - Uncut 6/2005

USA Today.com
Greg Trooper, "Make It Through This World"
A songwriter who would describe showing love to a hard-hearted girl as being "futile as a prayer" might not be a religious man, but Trooper's songs have the ring of gospel truth. Sure, the organ and the piano testify to each other on Dream Away the Blues, and the slide guitar sways and shouts like a Pentecostal preacher, but mostly it's in the care the Nashville singer/songwriter shows for even his least desirable characters, and in the way they all strive for meaning in their loves and lives. — Brian Mansfield - USA Today.com

Montreal Gazette
Make It Through This World" (Sugar Hill)
On earlier albums, Greg Trooper has used alt-country and folk-rock settings for his well-crafted songs. Here, though, Trooper teams up with legendary rhythm 'n' blues producer Dan Penn to give his music a soul-infused edge. Numbers like Lonely Pair and Close to the Tracks are a very appealing synthesis of old school R&B and classic country music that come alive under Penn's warm-sounding analog recording approach. That there are no synthesized sounds on these tracks also helps. You can sense the whirl of the Leslie when Kevin McKendree plays his washes on the Hammond B3 organ. One of the most appealing tunes is Green Eyed Girl, a nice mix of a laidback R&B groove with a raggy, Piedmont-style blues guitar arrangement. Mike Regenstreif - Montreal Gazette

Greg Trooper says "The Williamsburg Affair" is the missing link in his recording history. Befitting any missing link, it's a piece of archaeology, a release of songs recorded in 1995 with his touring band featuring Brooklyn rocker Eric Ambel at the knobs. "I was touring with a band exclusively in those days and writing for that kind of energy," Trooper says. "I think it informed my future writing as well. I believe my writing has improved since then and that was a stepping stone towards what I do now."

What he does now is write and release some of the best roots work around, notably his last two studio discs, the infectious "Floating" and the soulful "Make It Through This World."

But to get here, he went through Brooklyn's Williamsburg on his way to Nashville and (metaphorically, at least) Memphis before returning to New York recently. "The Williamsburg Affair" is a snapshot of Trooper's progress. There's none of the assured humor of Trooper's live show and later work, but there's an appealing immediacy throughout. And it's Trooper so there isn't a dud in the set, including the lone cover of Neil Young's "Wrecking Ball."

There are the beginnings of his recently soulful forays on "Stronger All the Time" and "These Sunday Nights," which foreshadows later tunes like "I Love It When She Lies." Abel Domingues rips through "Paradise," one of many highlights with searing slide work. The twang that would slip into Trooper's work more obviously after he moved to Nashville in 1996 shows up on "These Sunday Nights" thanks to Larry Campbell's pedal steel work.

Not surprisingly given the band and Ambel's fondness for straight-ahead garage rock, the sound is more muscular, less adorned, than Trooper's recent work. Kenneth Blevins, the drummer on several Trooper albums when he's not hanging with John Hiatt, is ferocious from the opener, "Angel." Ambel and Dan Zanes provide the guitar muscle on "When You're Not Here." "Let's Pretend" is another in a long line of propulsively rocking love songs.
As usual, there are quieter moments as well. "Quite Like You" can take its place beside "The Lasting Kind." "21st Century Boy," a reflective ode to his son, hints at Trooper's genius for accompaniment featuring Joe Flood's sighing fiddle work ("21st Century Boy" and "Paradise" make appearances with different arrangements on "Popular Demons").
"Once I got to Nashville a whole new project emerged with a new label so I figured I'd return to the Ambel produced record shortly afterwards but of course things didn't go that way," Trooper says.


The way things went is Trooper became everyone's favorite songwriter who couldn't get a break. Yes, Buddy Miller and then Garry Tallent produced albums. Steve Earle took "Little Sister" for "Copperhead Road." Emmylou came in to sing harmonies. But Trooper has endured one hard luck label after another. He signs, records an album, and the label folds or fails to back him. "Floating" on Sugar Hill Records ended that string and landed Trooper on plenty of "best of" lists in 2005. Then Dan Penn produced the followup, the reflective "Make It Through This World."


"The road we ride is a little rough, the times we live in are a little tough...these are my shoes, will you walk in them? These are my blues, try avoiding them," he sings on "21st Century Boy." Trooper's road has taken him North, where he began life as Jersey boy. He's back on the road, telling those stories about being so French, suffering through another shitty Saturday night, and being mistaken for Joe Pantoliano, enduring obscurity.
If songwriters were paid for good reviews and the admiration of peers, Trooper would be on Easy Street. That he's not doesn't diminish the power and craft of another stellar set.
- No Depression