When
Ross Ryan sings about putting a bullet through the radio
and trashing his TV he’s only half kidding.
Country music may be big in his hometown of
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, but it doesn’t win much airplay in his digs
in leafy Glen Iris. The man who rode local airwaves in 1974 on a flying steed
named Pegasus has not made huge bucks from that stable in
the sky for a long time. But Ryan, 53, has not been idle - his multi media
career kept the dingoes from his door as he produced Gippsland gauchos Jo
Jo Leslie and Dale Juner at his flood belt studio.
Leslie reciprocates by singing on Ryan’s
fifth album - his first since 1978. Although the radio friendly peak of the
disc is a rollicking Shania Twain spoof ‘Look Out For The Ricochet’
this is not just a country disc. But there’s suffice decent country
songs such as ‘Not Our Time’ and ‘The
Only Show In Town’, featuring Ken Stephenson
on pedal steel and dobro and Perth refugee Andrew Clermont on
violin, mandolin and 12 string guitar, to give it grit.
And, unlike some better-known artists for whom he has penned songs, he still
has the vocal timbre to ensure he doesn’t fall between the cracks.
There’s even a dab of parodic gospel
on finale ‘Walk On Water’ - not the hidden tracks.
So what about the rest of the disc?
Well, entrée ‘Only My Breathing’ sets
a whimsical mood that enables Ryan to stretch out on hook, heavy single ‘Cool
River’, with Leslie among harmonisers, and ‘Chase
The Ghosts Away’ - both adorned by Clermont. Ryan injects ruptured
romance requiems ‘Don’t Be Unkind’ and
‘Lovers Turned To Thieves’ with enough vitriol to ensure
they sneak under the radio radar as MOR missiles of mass distraction.
Whether Mark Holden and Don
Burke and the O.K. Chorale on ‘Spirit
Of The Rain’ open a TV door is in the groin of the Gods.
But it appears the 26-year drought between
albums has not dimmed passion or talent of a tireless thespian who struts
his stuff at Albert Park Yacht Club on February 14.
DAVID DAWSON
Beat Magazine