A lot of country singers don’t know squat about horses, trailer parks, and rural life – but they can sound like they do, thanks to the songs written for them by guys like Chris Knight. A former coalmine inspector from a speck on the map in Kentucky, Knight is one of those plucked-from-obscurity successes whose story sounds like it was dreamed up in a Beverly Hills bungalow for a crappy movie script, but he’s the real deal – and though he’s never enjoyed a ton of success as a recording artist, he’s written plenty of cuts for more established acts: Montgomery Gentry, John Anderson, Ty Herndon, and Gary Allan are just a few of the performers who have covered his songs. Trailer II, as you might have already gleaned from its title, is a collection of demos taped in a trailer, and a sequel to 2007’s well-received The Trailer Tapes. Recorded over a decade ago, when Knight was still years away from making his major label debut, these performances offer a grippingly intimate snapshot of an artist with little more than a guitar and a dream. Unlike The Trailer Tapes, the songs that make up Trailer II will be familiar to Knight’s fans, but hearing them here, in all their stripped-down majesty, provides a more direct emotional connection to the material. He’s been described as “John Prine and Steve Earle rolled into one,” and despite the hyperbole of the comparison, that’s as apt a way as any to describe what you’ll hear here. Forgive the somewhat dodgy fidelity and bask in the sweltering heat of a bona fide Americana talent. (Drifter’s Church 2009)
