Michael O'Connor

Throughout musical history, both the concept album and the “buddy album” have been reason for consternation even among fans of the artists involved; the former often entails pretension and all-or- nothing clunkiness, while the latter usually yields one or two good tunes padded out with stuff that neither party cared to include on their solo records. Hard Times could bring back the good name of both approaches, though, partly because the concept is loose enough (character sketches of knock-around types on the Texas Gulf Coast) for the songs to stand on their own, and partly because the collaborators complement each other so well. Adam Carroll has yet to lose the unconven- tional, folksy wit that’s invited all those John Prine comparisons through the years (worse things could happen to a songwriter), and Michael O’Connor’s guitar chops and heart- string-tugging tenor vocals bring the musicali- ty up to the level of the storytelling. Through songs both hilarious (“Billy Gibbons’ Beard”) and poignant (“Highway Prayer”), one thing is made clear: you can sure as hell trust these buddies with a concept. ETHAN MESSICK - Texas Music Magazine

Hard Times was released on January 1, 2010 by Texas singer-songwriters Adam Carroll and Michael O’Connor. I’m pretty well acquainted with the former as the laconic, yet sharp-witted songwriter who writes the funniest folk songs this side of Todd Snider. And while I haven’t heard of O’Connor before, his contributions to this record are outstanding and suggest that O’Connor may be yet another hidden gem from Texas. A former sideman for Carroll as well as other Texas singer-songwriters including Slaid Cleaves, O’Connor’s guitar work on Hard Times is expectedly . However, it’s his soulful vocals and songwriting that are the real revelation here though. His bourbon soaked voice provides a great counter to Carroll’s rather distinctive story telling style, often recalling a dryer Grayson Capps. Plus, his songwriting is top notch and it would have to be if you are sharing album space with Carroll.

The two have come together to create a complete album, that cycles through various down-on-their-luck characters. And from the opening stomp of the “New Year’s Eve” to the closing “Gulf Coast Losers”, they sketch characters both sad and funny, yet distinctly regional in flavor. Whether its failing or succeeding with the girls in New Orleans or drinking at an empty bar in Galveston, the characters ring as true as those of Larry McMurtry or perhaps more appropriately Robert Earl Keen’s “Corpus Christi Bay”.

Carroll and O’Connor don’t limit themselves to whiskey and women as they write about the current ‘Hard Times’. Songs like “Throw A Nickel” and the title track, alternate between humorous and serious takes on current economic hardships. There aren’t any anthems here, but there aren’t any throw aways either. Highly recommended for fans of Prine, Snider, Jerry Jeff Walker, or Guy Clark.

“As we pause in life’s pleasures and count its many tears
Let us all taste the hungers of the poor.
There’s a song that will linger forever in our ears:
Hard times, come again no more.”
-Stephen Foster “Hard Times”
________________________________________
About the author: Specializes in Dead, Drunk, and Nakedness..... Formerly a college radio DJ, he gave into the man and is now a law student at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT.

- Eli Petersen for Twangville.com

1. In case you have forgotten the power of an album, in this age of 30 second audio samples, digital only singles, and increasingly short attention spans, Adam Carroll and Michael O’Connor would like to refresh your memory. Hard Times, the new collaborative effort between the two, stands as a complete song cycle about one thing: Gulf Coast losers. Carroll has made a career of writing about wretched people who live off the beaten path, while O’Connor is better known for being a sideman for Slaid Cleaves and Susan Gibson, among others. This record finds them writing together on most of the songs, revealing the intricacies of those who live on the south coast of Texas and Louisiana.

2. “New Years Eve” finds Carroll sketching the figure of a hard luck musician “turnin’ water into wine” over O’Connor’s wailing slide guitar, before moving into “Bernadine”. In this tale, a man with slightly better luck becomes a winner, despite being a self proclaimed “run down low rent Gulf Coast loser” and begs a woman to “make [his] hard times shine like gold”. After losing all his money in the second verse, the whore becomes the saint Bernadine, and he promises to “cast his nets into the Galveston Bay” in exchange for a little help. O’Connor’s raspy voice outlines the often simultaneous desire for pleasure and salvation.

3. “Billy Gibbons’ Beard” circles around a drunk with a “bar tab twice as long” as the title who just wishes he had another shot at high school, when he passed up on an opportunity to touch the famed guitarist’s facial hair. O’Connor’ follows it up with “Throw a Nickel”, another character study that traces the money trail from the poor into the hands of the law and the clergy. Carroll uses the title track to follow another down and out loser whose friends seem to be the only ones feeling the effects, until he buys a round for the crowd of one at a bar that turns out to be BYOB.

4. O’Connor’s “Bottle Down” assures that “all the liquor in your veins”, presumably as a result of the recession, “has got you in the devil’s chains,” as he pleads with a loved one to abstain, while Carroll adds a smoldering harmonica, before lightening the mood with the bouncy “Tired Of Myself”, asking “can I be somebody new?”. The pair cover each other on the next two tracks, with Carroll tackling “Sleepy Town”, which follows two fallen stars who contribute a lot of action to their unsuspecting home. O’Connor takes on Carroll’s “Highway Prayer”, which previously appeared on his most recent record Old Town Rock and Roll. A stirring tribute to drifters, road warriors, and “those whose seeds in life are scattered”, all beautifully underscored by producer Gabe Rhodes’ harmonium. After a short harmonica interlude, they finish the record with the thesis statement, “Gulf Coast Losers”, penned with Gordy Quist of the Band of Heathens. The song looks out from the viewpoint of a man who knows his place in the world, “choking down hot boxed wine” but perfectly content with his social standing who enters an ill-fated battle of the bands (against some out of towners named “Billy Gibbons’ Beard”).

5. Carroll and O’Connor have crafted a complete record about a slice of life where there is little to do but laugh. Managing to realize the effects of an economic recession and combine it with a healthy dose of absurdity, they create a song cycle that entertains from beginning to end and reads like the best Larry Brown novel he never wrote. However simple life may seem in this part of the world, it is no less complex, and these two approach it with reverence. This is more than a collection of songs — it is a true album, full of inside jokes, references, and carrying themes from song to song. Releasing on the first day of 2010, Hard Times sets a standard for craftsmanship that is going to be tough to top.

- Jeff Giddens - Jeff Giddens for No Depression & SoundsCountry.com

Adam Carroll is a fresh-faced, East Texas-bred troubadour whose songs deal with characters including grizzled cab drivers, oil patch Romeos and the lovely sister of a sno-cone peddler.

Michael O'Connor is a long-haired, Gulf Coast-tempered singer-songwriter and a guitar slinger who works with Slaid Cleaves, Susan Gibson and Ted Russell Kamp.

The pair has hammered together a collection of songs that take unvarnished looks at not-so-beautiful losers who populate the margins: the has-beens, the never-will-bes. With songs such as the title track, "Gulf Coast Losers," "New Year's Eve" and "Throw a Nickel," the duo effectively nails hardscrabble reality while occasionally leavening looks at tough subjects and rough people with dark humor. With the line "a bar tab twice as long as Billy Gibbons' beard," even losers win.

— Jim Beal Jr.
- Jim Beal Jr for San Antonio Express News