The 1985 Project Part 22: Jason & the Scorchers - Lost and Found

Remember when country and punk were just trying each other out?

I first saw Jason & the Nashville Scorchers when they drove across Illinois to play a sparsely attended gig in St. Louis in 1981. In those days, my critical sensibilities were still developing, so I honestly can’t tell you what specifically I didn’t like about them. But, boy oh boy, I really didn’t like that show. (By the reports of a pal, on whose couch and floor some of them slept that night, they were nice guys, and I love the fact that they went to the zoo the next day with my friends.) I don’t think I’d been exposed to any country music / punk rock hybrid before that night.

Two years later, I came across the original EP called Fervor which they released on an independent label. Their version of Bob Dylan’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie” floored me, as it did virtually everybody – Dylan included – who ever heard it. It’s near the top of any list of cover versions that are better than the already terrific originals. There were some pretty strong original songs of their own on that EP, too, most notably “Help There’s a Fire” and “Harvest Moon.”

Another year passed, and the band had signed to EMI Records. Fervor was reissued with extra tracks to make it an album, and I saw Jason and the Scorchers (the Nashville had been dropped from their name somewhere along the line) play a scintillating show at Mississippi Nights. In the space of three years, I had gone from hating this band to becoming a big fan.

I kept on following the band after that, but I’m not sure I ever loved them again the way I did in 1984. Lost and Found was the follow-up record, and you can hear the bigger budget in the recording. The drums were gated the way Phil Collins did it. The guitars were louder with more overdubs. There were extra instruments such as fiddle and pedal steel on a couple tracks. These were not all bad things – well, the gated drums were, but I don’t think they ruin the band’s sound. Jason and the Scorchers wanted to be big, and they wanted their sound to be huge.

The two personalities at the front of the band – singer Jason Ringenberg and guitarist Warner Hodges – were musically at odds in a way that made for a powerful synthesis. Ringenberg was all country music, full of twang in his voice and sorrow in his songs, though he also was obviously exhilarated by punk rock in his enthusiasm. Hodges liked heavy metal, and loved to mix hot and fiery licks from that genre in among the power chords and the nods to Nashville session guitarists of the past. Put them together with the rhythm section of Jeff Johnson on bass and Perry Baggs on drums, and you had a band that pushed hard and furious with and against each other.

Listening to Lost and Found for the first time in decades, I found myself reacting to the energy and excitement these guys could generate. The covers this time were from Eddy Arnold, among many others (“I Really Don’t Want to Know”) and Hank Williams (“Lost Highway”). Ringenberg wrote or co-wrote six songs, with Baggs responsible for parts of three others. I think Ringenberg’s songs had the most pathos and effective imagery. Certainly “Shop It Around” and “Broken Whiskey Glass” stand out from the pack due to memorable hooks and stories. The former condenses a tale of a soldier missing a lost love possibly as a last memory. The latter mourns a lover who couldn’t commit despite trying many unfulfilling substitutes, and features the indelible lines, “Here lies Jason, strangled by a love that wouldn’t breathe.”

A record built on passion and well, fervor needs more songs like these two and the covers I mentioned to make it stick in the old memory bank. I was glad to revisit this, but I wonder how much of it will come to mind the next time I see a used copy slide across my desk at the record store where I work. Interestingly enough, this and three of the next four finishers in the 1985 Pazz and Jop Poll are important precursors of the alt-country movement that would be born in just a few years.

I’m gonna give this one 6 out of 10 points.

UPDATE: I’ve heard from veteran music scribe Reverend Keith Gordon who pointed out some places my memory let me down in the above piece. Fervor was actually their second EP, after the incredibly rare Reckless Country Soul, which he says came out in '82, which combined with Rene Saller’s comment below convinces me that I saw them in 1982, not 1981. The original 1983 Fervor did not include “Absolutely Sweet Marie,” which was added on when EMI reissued the EP in ‘84. Which makes Lost & Found the band’s first full-length. Lesson learned - it’s harder to keep things straight the more years pass since you experienced them.