Vic Chesnutt: The Salesman and Bernadette

The Salesman and Bernadette appeared in 1998, the follow-up to the largely ignored but stunning About To Choke. Recorded as a collaborative work with large alternative country band Lambchop, it was greeted with a great deal of positive press attention, much of which implied that Vic Chesnutt had finally come into his own.

Personally, though, I was disappointed. Looking at it now, it clearly is a good album, an interesting experiment, and a fine story. There are a few too many horns for me, but that's a personal taste-quirk. What I could not get past , however, was the bizarre production decision to bury and mute the vocal track. The album as a whole is a Roy Thomas Baker-style over-compressed mash of sound, and while that may have worked with Queen, it's a bad choice here, especially with a soul singer of Vic Chesnutt's calibre.

I rarely listen to this record, and it's a pity: Most of the songs are fantastic. The through-line story of a lonesome, drunkish, smitten travelling salesman, follows him from nowhere (an airport duty-free shop) to nowhere (an old hotel). In between he drinks and travels and tells stories and longs for Bernadette. Lyrically, Chesnutt is at the top of his game; I could quote the whole lyric sheet as evidence of his capturing of modern middle American loneliness perfectly. I'll settle for sharing this:

She said her father looked like Woodrow Wilson
I saw him once and
thought he looked just a little bit like Truman
I know for a fact he has an Eisenhower ashtray
- from Woodrow Wilson

The more I think about it, the more I listen, the more I feel (a) ripped off, and (b) like I should put more effort into loving this record. It is too good to be ignored. If I could have my way, though, I'd have it produced again with a crisp, detailed sound. After the initial hype, by the way, the mainstream press turned away again. They may never get it. A sad story all around.

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Vic Chesnutt: The Salesman and Bernadette. Capricorn Records, 1998.
Review by Jeff Clayton. 5th issue, March 2002.

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