The Life and Times Of Wayne Berry...In Song!

One of the pleasures of creating alternate albums or albums that didn't exist before is - I freely admit it - a God complex. Being the creator that brings order to chaos has an unmistakable allure. It's also fun to play with history, as a reader recently suggested. But yeah, the God complex thing. It gets especially strong if you not only do an album that under other circumstances could have existed, but a concept album that you built from scratch. The whole point of concept albums is of course that they are - if everything goes according to plan and its practitioners aren't total amateurs - meticulously planned. So, to propose a concept album out of a bunch of random outtakes is no doubt a total act of hubris. Constructing a musical autobiography without the artist's knowledge is madness. But hey, a guy's -  especially of the one buck variety - gotta do what a guy's gotta do. 

This will be the end of the three-part "albums that didn't exist"-project of residential favorite Wayne Berry. It is also in some ways my favorite because finding (or maybe: establishing) connections that you didn't see (or maybe: that didn't exist) before is half of the fun of constructing this kind of album. And the more I put songs on the side that might fit the project, the clearer the narrative became. It all started with the newly-minted title song of this album that didn't but should exist: "Country Boy, City Dreams" is clearly autobiographical and sounds like a man taking stock of his career and life situation. Alone, his would not prop up a concept. But then I threw "Looking For Love In America" on the pile, a song that recounts the meeting and love affair of Berry's parents, as well as his own subsequent birth and childhood, ending up with the narrator, Berry himself, looking for love in America. Now, things got interesting: Two autobiographical songs talking about different aspects and times in his life. Now I felt I had something there. 

From these two tentpoles, the rest of the story came easy. ""Looking For Love In America" opens proceedings during World War II and throughout Berry's childhood. From there he alternates between commenting on his love life and his career, first asking you to "Remember The First Time" you fell in (and out) of love before reflecting on his first steps in the rock'n'roll world in "Home Coming Dance". Back to romantic disillusion in "How Many Dreams (You've Got To Lose)" and "In Another World". Then, Berry decides to pick himself up again and go "High Steppin'", pleading to a woman to "Give Me The Chance". Then be contemplates where he is, how he got there and what that got him in "Country Boy, City Dreams" and concludes that he's part of a "Lost Generation". But he doesn't give up hope that "The Next Time" he falls in love with a woman, it will be the good (and final) one. See, it absolutely holds together, almost like the man wrote and planned it that way! He didn't, of course, but hey, order from chaos and all that. If Country Boy, City Dreams was never planned as an album, it sure as hell could've been...

And that concludes my sojourns into expanding Wayne Berry's discography and hopefully helping in spreading knowledge and appreciation of the man as well. He now goes from two barely available (three if you count the unreleased album for Capitol) solo records to five albums with the three albums that never existed that One Buck Records proposed to you. Now, that's a real discography. As with the first two albums (and the 'best of' I compiled) this is eminently listenable pop with folk and country influences. I repeat myself, admittedly, but Berry could've and should've been bigger than he was. Well, now there is more of his music out there to enjoy, so I hope you do just that with Country Boy, City Dreams...