Cashville411.com

On the title track of his new album, singer-songwriter Davis Raines sings, “My heart is down in Dixie,” and the line serves well as the raison d'être for his third studio release.

Raines may be chasing personal demons on Going To Montgomery, but it is an album of absolution and redemption for all white, Southern men, especially those of the working class. On the title cut, Davis captures the South’s cultural schizophrenia when he sings, “where it’s hard and hot and hateful, where it’s soft and cool and sweet.”

Tennessee Williams described Southern Gothic as "an intuition, of an underlying dreadfulness in modern experience." If this album isn’t technically Southern Gothic, it is unquestionably informed by that literary subgenre.

Raines’ songs feature people who live hardscrabble lives and have few options to do much better. Early in his life, he was captain of a maximum security prison in Alabama, so he has seen up close the underbelly of the South.

One of the album’s recurring themes is the elusiveness of money for those who don’t have that much of it. On “Slaughterhouse,” he sings, “It ain’t no sin to work and still be poor,” but he offers a different outlook on “Pocket Full Of Jack”: “A man ain’t worth a damn without a pocket full of jack.”

Musically, Going To Montgomery ranges from stripped-down, acoustic folk to full-blown, roots and country rock. Although she kept the backing simple, producer and multi-instrumentalist Tricia Walker contributed assorted instrumentation to the basic tracks, including clavinet, accordion, organ, and pennywhistle, which add greatly to the album's dynamics.

The title track will surely have a cathartic effect on any native of the South. The world-weary, melancholy atmosphere created by the interplay of Paul Brannon on electric guitar and Mike Daly on steel guitar, and Walker’s aching, background vocals perfectly complement the song’s heavy subject matter: “I’m going to Montgomery/And walk with Martin Luther King/I’m gonna shake these demons from me.”

One cannot help but admire the honesty and courage Raines displays in the lyrics of many of the album’s 14 songs, but he has a romantic side, too, which he shows on tracks like “I Dare Not Call Her Name,” “Lover Girl,” and “Scared of Losing You.” He also flashes a dry, self-deprecating sense of humor on “Bad Habits.”

After slaying both his cultural and personal demons, Raines closes the album with “The Road To Jericho,” an allegory for the new South he envisions, where “despite our different shades ... we can be companions on the road to Jericho.”

There can be no doubt that Raines has made a significant, personal, artistic statement with this record. But Going To Montgomery artfully chronicles not only the artist's own struggles, but the struggles of the entire region, to overcome the South’s enormous, cultural baggage.

— Daryl Sanders