Detroit disc: The right end of country

November 30, 2003

"We are an opening act with no hit record playing to a house that's packed," front man Ron Jacobs sings during the opening moments of "The Wrong End of the Bar," the first album from Detroit's enduring Forbes Brothers since the mid-'90s.

A few tracks later, on "Hip Hop Country Rock," Jacobs bitingly addresses just how tough it can be for a country band from the Motor City to be taken seriously in Music City: "The man down in Nashville said say that again/ You're a country band from Michigan/ He said you gotta be from here and that is all/ That man never spoke with a Southern drawl."

If the Forbes Brothers are sounding a little frustrated these days, well, they have reason to. They've been pleasing enthusiastic hometown crowds with a mix of country and country-rock since 1990, they've shared stages with everyone from Lonestar to George Jones, and the songwriting on their new album rivals -- even surpasses -- much of what's coming out of mainstream Nashville nowadays. But the breakthrough moment that could take the band's career to the next level has yet to arrive.

On the new album, the seven-man outfit dabbles in pop-leaning, mainstream country ("Over Again," which would be right at home on a Diamond Rio disc) and comes through for country traditionalists with the first-rate, banjo-tinged "Tell Me." However, it's the tracks that showcase the Forbes Brothers' unique Dee-troit country sound -- an oddball hybrid that mixes hillbilly harmonies and old-time rock 'n' roll with just a hint of R&B -- that provide the most memorable moments. Best examples? The soulful "Lovers in Dreams" and the Hank Williams-inspired "Last Lost Highway," a country rap with a killer chorus that just won't quit.

Scott and Dennis Forbes and company have done some darn good songcrafting on "The Wrong End of the Bar." These tunes catch your ear, hook you and leave you humming them for days. In an world that valued music over image, youth and marketing tricks, they'd be heard -- and hummed -- well beyond the confines of Motown.

By Greg Crawford,

Free Press staff writer

Copyright © 2003 Detroit Free Press Inc.
 

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