Electric Rodeo

1	Electric Rodeo 4:33
2	Gone To Carolina 4:06
3	Some Rowdy Women 3:13
4	The Song Is Still Slipping Away 3:09
5	Hair of the Dog 4:01
6	Little White Lines 5:29
7	Alligator Chomp (The Ballad of Dr. Martin Luther Frog a s Told To Tony 3:10
8	Manifesto No. 2 2:09
9	Aviators 3:23
10	Bad Magick 5:12
11	It Ain't Easy 3:05

Barnes & Noble

The authoritative writing and playing on Shooter Jennings's debut, Put the "O" Back in Country, brooked valid comparisons to Steve Earle's noted first album, Guitar Town. No one, however, will confuse the second disc from Waylon's son with Earle's sophomore effort, Exit 0. For several cuts on Electric Rodeo -- which sounds more like his dad's This Time crossed with Exile-era Stones -- Shooter has adopted a low, rumbling baritone that's a dead ringer for Waylon. Particularly on a song such as the roiling "Some Rowdy Women," it's eerie to the point of being diabolical. For another thing, Shooter has supplanted the twang with pile-driving hard-rock chording out of the Jimmy Page/early Zep school (with an occasional nod to Hendrix, as in the psychedelic flutters exploding out of the title track), often buttressed by drums thundering across the soundscape. Jennings makes more than a few references to his famous father, and even more to the raptures induced by herb and alcohol (and cocaine, in the white-hot rumble-and stop-time sniffles of "Little White Lines"), plus a worrisome degree of pride in the unabashed hosannas to excess. If Shooter's feeling like he's shadowed by ghosts, he couldn't have driven the point home more dramatically than he does in the lone cover song here. His deep honky-tonk rendition of Hank Williams Jr.'s "(The) Living Proof" evolves from a howling plea for deliverance from genetic fate into a high-stepping, horn-driven workout at the fade -- surely a purposely ambiguous ending to an album that rocks with righteous fury and is so over the top in its effervescent debauchery that it begs his daddy's question, "Don't you think this outlaw bit's done got out of hand?" David McGee

All Music Guide

In a recent interview, Shooter Jennings claimed that Electric Rodeo was actually recorded before Put the O Back in Country, which was released first. Sonically, Electric Rodeo is louder, rawer, more upfront rock & roll than its predecessor, though there are solid, old-school country tunes here as well: the wild fiddle stomp of "Manifesto No. 2," and the broken love song "Aviators," with its spoken word intro and whinnying pedal steel. But as the title suggests, for the most part, Electric Rodeo is a hardcore, roaring country-rock record. Jennings' band -- Leroy Powell on guitar, Brian Keeling on drums, and Ted Kamp on bass with Robby Turner on steel, and backing vocals by no less than Bonnie Bramlett -- are a crack crew. They swagger and slither and stomp, but they know how to whisper, too. On tracks such as the title, "Little White Lines," "Bad Magick," and the jet-propelled swamp funk of "Alligator Chomp" -- with a guest vocal by Tony Joe White -- Jennings uses angular Texas blues, hard rock/arena rock dynamics -- complete with Mac Truck volume guitars -- tight, big whomp drums, and the almighty riff to get his hell-raising message across. There are also some more outlaw country-styled cuts such as "It Ain't Easy," "Goin' to Carolina," "Some Rowdy Women," "The Song Is Still Slipping Away," and "Hair of the Dog." They recall the brand of historic country music Jennings' father helped to pioneer in the 1970s. The term "outlaw" is simply a musically descriptive word now; it's not meant to be a millstone around Shooter's neck -- even though he directly references Waylon often (and let's face it, if anyone has a right to do that, it's him). Electric Rodeo is solid; it's full of ragged road poetry, defiant rowdyism, and restless, rust-stained, country-soul, with plenty of its own charisma. Thom Jurek