Trailer II

Back in 1996 — when he had yet to record his self-titled debut album for MCA — Chris Knight recorded some demos in a trailer in his native Kentucky. It was nothing elaborate — mostly just Knight on vocals and acoustic guitar — but emotionally, the performances were worth their weight in gold. Some of those performances became commercially available when The Trailer Tapes was released on the Drifters Church label in 2007, and Trailer II picks up where The Trailer Tapes left off with 44 minutes of additional performances. Knight's longtime fans will be familiar with "Love and a .45," "Bring the Harvest Home," "It Ain't Easy Being Me," "Summer of '75," and "The River's Own," all of which appeared on Knight's self-titled debut album in 1998. "Send a Boat" and "Highway Junkie," meanwhile, are gems that Knight included on his second album, A Pretty Good Guy, in 2001. But the acoustic versions heard on Trailer II are much rawer than the official studio versions, and Knight's performances are as compelling as they are intimate. The sparseness of these performances, in fact, really makes the power of Knight's lyrics jump out at the listener. Knight is one hell of a storyteller; his songs paint an amazingly vivid and often gritty picture of working-class life in rural America — and unlike all the slick corporate country that is about as authentically working class as Sarah Palin on a shopping spree, Knight's music isn't an empty pose. It is obvious that life in small-town Kentucky is something that Knight has first-hand knowledge of. Although these demos weren't recorded in an actual studio, the sound quality is quite good — and those who enjoyed The Trailer Tapes won't find Trailer II to be any less absorbing.