Teddy and the Rough Riders, Down Home
Since COVID lockdown, we’ve run a recurring print column called Another Look that rounds up several super-brief record reviews. It’s a way to highlight worthy releases from Nashville-residing musicians during the past few months that we haven’t yet covered in-depth. The time has come for an evolution: Rather than one whopping article, we’re revamping Another Look as a series of single short reviews, with one or more iterations online each week.
Because it combines post-Del Reeves arrangements with hints of country that sometimes turn toward glam rock, Teddy and the Rough Riders’ Down Home comes across as congenial and unassuming as the title suggests. Bandleaders Jack Quiggins and Ryan Jennings make music that recalls 1970s AM-ready country, with soft, friendly vocals at the fore. “Bullet” rocks a Cajun beat that conjures up images of, say, Jimmy C. Newman opening for the Grateful Dead somewhere near Shreveport, La., in 1971. The lyrics are slyly funny, as in this couplet from “Hippies”: “I was eager to know how I played and if he enjoyed it / But he punished me for being nice.”
