Folksinger
Mike West lays down his mantra in the opening cut, "Dixie," on
New South: "I don't suffer fools and I don't play Dixie."
West mixes his left-of-center humor with fairly straightforward arrangements (if one doesn't count the tuba) for 18 original songs. "Dogs and Ticks" includes a number of circular stories, each starting simply and building toward amusing catastrophe. The dogs get ticks, which leads to lime disease; the narrator buys weed, which leads to getting busted. However, all turns out well when the narrator finds Jesus, which gets him saved -- and "being saved got me praying/Now I got to behave."
West paints a sardonic portrait of the New South on the album's title cut, a land occupied by "fraternity boys and sorority girls" along with lots of folks from up north. Despite all the changes, everything seems pretty much the same: "In the New South like the Old South/Speak your mind but shut your mouth/When you're talking about the New South."
West's skewed point of view works less well on pieces like "Clothes Dryer" and "Muleskinner," songs that go on too long and are a bit obvious. Fans who have grown fond of
West's oddball approach to folk will nonetheless joyfully add
New South to their CD collections. ~ Ronnie D. Lankford Jr.