AMG Review of Best of the Sugar Hill Years

Ronnie D. Lankford
All Music Guide

Terry Allen might loosely be described as a singer/songwriter who developed his idiosyncratic style within the Texas roots scene during the 1970s. Loosely, that puts Allen in line with singer/songwriters like Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt, though he has more in common with a writer-singer like Butch Hancock. But what Hancock and Allen share is less a common style than a penchant for eccentricity. This eccentricity, fueled by a left-of-center sense of humor and a sardonic, nasal-tinged vocal style, is on full display on Best of the Sugar Hill Years. The collection includes a generous sampling of Allen's work, serving as a solid one-disc introduction. Here, one can listen to true oddities like "Gimme a Ride to Heaven Boy," a five-minute narrative about picking up a hitchhiker who claims to be Jesus Christ. The thing is, within Allen's world view, the hitchhiker, who eventually pulls out a gun and takes the car, may be Jesus. If this sounds overly odd or trivial, it isn't. Allen's gifts as a musician are multiple, allowing him to combine the song's country-rock arrangement, a well-written lyric, and his vocal delivery into a strangely effective work. There are a number of winning selections from Lubbock (On Everything), an album worth owning in its entirety, and one of Allen's best recent compositions (with Guy Clark), "X-Mas on the Isthmus." For those bored with the same old, same old, Best of the Sugar Hill Years will open up new vistas.