Christopher Blank

"This is My America"

Here’s something to keep in the back of your head as you’re reading about the Most Patriotic Album in American History.

It was made by a Canadian.

Mind you, television producer Douglas Hutton has done a lot of traveling across this great nation in the 30 years since he first dreamed up a concept album that would “tell the story of America.”

From the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters, this land was made for you, me and a Canuck who came up with “This Is My America,” (Hutton Music) an expansive 3-disc set of 38 songs that comes boxed with a life-sized copy of the Declaration of Independence.

A notable Memphian stands out in the thank you section of the liner notes. Martha Ellen Maxwell, former director of the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, says that more than two decades ago she took Hutton on a visit to several local churches, where gospel music got him excited about the country’s musical diversity.

Really, there’s only a smidgen of gospel in “This Is My America,” courtesy of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.

Wholesome Americana is the dominant sound.

To achieve this musical soundtrack to U.S. History 101, Hutton assembled a vast group of tunesmiths from the Nashville Songwriters Association International and asked them to pen songs derived from milestone events.

As one might expect from Music City lyricists, the tunes have a country twang, and given that the singers include Charley Pride, Dolly Parton, Matt King and Kathy Mattea among others, the heartland accent isn’t subtle. (Where where you, Mr. Patriotism Toby Keith, when they were doling out the cuts?)

What Dutton has put together, I think, is a great road trip album, something you’d pop in the CD player during a cross-country drive. Interspersed between the songs are narrative segues that set the scenes with epic orchestration and the occasional marching snare drum.

The songwriting is often reminiscent of story ballads like the “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” or Dylan’s “Hurricane.”

Singer/songwriter J Fred Knobloch penned a heartfelt tune, “Chimneyville,” based on the Yankee burning of his Mississippi hometown during the Civil War.

Arguably the most touching song in the entire set is Beth Nielsen Chapman’s devastating lullaby “There’s a Light” which only vaugely references the 9/11 tragedy. (The Fisk singers, bringing on the gospel, will leave you weeping at the end.)

Strangely, when I open “This Is My America” in iTunes, it’s listed as an “unclassifiable” genre. While I’d definitely put the music in the country/folk category, iTunes is correct in a way.

How can one truly classify a fervid, flag-waving tribute to the glory and greatness of the grand ol’ U S of A., as conceived by a smitten music producer from Canada?

-- Christopher Blank: 529-2305