I saw Pat Green at the 2002 Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Green had rushed back to Houston from a gig in Kansas City to open for Alan Jackson on a night when AJ was nursing a sore throat. Green thrilled the crowd, and, being the Yankee refugee that I am, I had absolutely no idea who Pat Green was. Now I find myself wishing I'd done my homework prior to the show. It seems I missed the beginning of quite a phenomenon.
"Wave On Wave," Green's second major label release, which comes out Tuesday, is a big leap from the suds-soaked dancehall ditties that made him a Texas college town superstar, selling more than 40,000 copies each of his four self-released CDs. It's as if Green has finally stopped trying to be Guy Clark or Jerry Jeff Walker and realized that he's a classic heartland rocker, with a sharp, smooth voice that cuts through the big guitars. There's still enough of Brendon Anthony's fiddle and Mike Daly's steel guitar to qualify for country radio, but it's clear that Green and the Universal label have widened their aim from coast to coast and beyond. When Green sings Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me" in Dallas, it's as much a plea for commercial acceptance as an ode to sexual attraction.
AND the guy has a 10 handicap. It apparently does not suck to be Pat Green these days....
