Search - Johnny Bush :: Talk to My Heart

If it weren't for the sweet warble in Johnny Bush's voice and his well-exercised penchant for using even pedal steel as if it were a lush string section, this Texas honky-tonk vet could break your heart. His tunes on this 1998 collection are all Kleenex-drenching in their heartfelt depths, with lines like "Any fool could see she was planning to leave / At least, any fool but me." Both the fool and the sensitive artist, Bush paints himself the injured ("My life's a neon nightmare since you've gone") and yet manages a kind of vocal fabric that belies the care he's taken with his voice since his early-'60s emergence. He massages the lyrics with restrained musical accompaniment, even when you'd expect something caustic. While his relationships with Willie Nelson and Ray Price helped Bush find a place in the country music world, he's seen few recording dates over the decades. But for all that, Bush's chops are still sharp, his song conceptions rich and poignant. --Andrew Bartlett