Wine Into Water

"Tonight, I'm as low as any man can go

 I'm down and I can't fall much farther 

And once upon a time, You turned the water into wine 

An' now, on my knees, I'm turning to You, Father 

Could You help me turn the wine back into water?" 

('Wine Into Water' / T. Graham Brown, Ted Hewitt, Bruce Burch)

In the mid 1980s a new voice caught the attention of Country Radio listeners. A voice that one would much rather expect to hear on Soul Radio. The unmistakable Blue Eyed Soul of T. Graham Brown, the white guy with the black voice from Georgia, brought a breath of fresh sounds into the Country Charts.

Until the end of the 1980s, his T-Ness had achieved 3 Number-1 and 7 Top-10 Country Hits, among them such lasting favorites as 'Hell and High Water', 'I Tell It Like It Used To Be' or 'I Wish That I Could Hurt That Way Again'. In terms of style, he always remained a little difficult to categorize. He loved to wear his Hawaian shirts and shades, and proudly presented his funky backing band "The Mighty Rack of Spam".

And I do remember him as a genuinely nice guy when I had the pleasure of meeting him in person in Nashville during several Fan Fairs.

On 4 albums from this time span he demonstrated his take on Country, that incorporated other musical influences, such as Soul ("Come As You Were"), Blues ("Bumper To Bumper") or Rock ("Brilliant Conversationalist").

Around that time there were even efforts to promote him in Europe and his Soul Rocker 'Later Train' (not available on any of his other records) made it onto the soundtrack of the German Schimanski-Movie 'Zabou'.

But when his 5th album "You Can't Take It With You" at the beginning of the 1990s did not make it into the charts (for no apparent reason), he got dropped by Capitol Records. Following that, were alcohol problems and for the main part of the 1990s, regretfully, T. Graham Brown vanished from the public eye.

It wasn't until 1998, when he resurfaced with his somehow autobiographical album "Wine Into Water". In its title cut, he described his fight with alcoholism and the song seemed to struck a nerve with audiences, as it even managed to reach the lower chart positions.

But in the meantime the higher chart positions were  occupied by a new generation of singers and although T. Graham Brown has neither lost his great and unique voice, nor his intuition for great songs with lots of Soul (such as the funky, bluesy 'Memphis Women And Chicken') not many seemed to care anymore.

In 2003 the rather low-key album "The Next Right Thing" followed and in 2006 "The Present", an album that mixed cover versions of standards such as 'I Can See Clearly Now', 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' or 'You Are The Sunshine of My Life' with new recordings of originals and some new songs. None left much of an imprint on the charts, which is by no way a judgement of the music included on these albums.

Then it became very quiet again around his Soul-Master T. Graham Brown. Gaining weight and growing a long white beard, I was bareyl able to recognize him. In 2014 he eventually celebrated his  60th birthday.

And maybe that moment in a lifetime, when you move into another decade, was the trigger to finally start work on a full album of new music again! And that work was worth the effort indeed.
T. Graham Brown has not lost his unique, powerful voice! Complemented by funky horn sections and a wagon load of guest voaclists, the album is a pleasure to listen to.

"Forever Changed" is the title of the new album, which interestingly was released digitally worldwide already in August of 2014, while the release of the physical CD version only happened at the end of January. Stylistically it rather belongs into the Gospel category, but the modern production and instrumentation make it more mainstream, than one might expect by its pure categorization .

Guest vocalists include among others, Vince Gill, The Oak Ridge Boys, Leon Russel, Sonya Isaacs, Jason Crabb and Jimmy Fortune. Songwise one finds T. Graham Brown Originals such as 'Power of Love' and 'Wine Into Water', next to standards such as 'People Get Ready' or rather unknown songs such as the great  'Soul Talk' or the bluesy 'Shadow of  Doubt' as a duet with legendary Leon Russel.

It so fun to listen to, that it more than deserves the (still unexpected) nomination for a 2015 Grammy Award in the category "Best Roots Gospel Album". I do keep my fingers crossed for his "T-Ness" and hope that it will not remain the last musical output we will ever get to hear from him.