"Ride Back in Time" a quirky look at Oddball Americana

Remember those old motels shaped like wigwams along Route 66? Or the doughnut shops shaped like huge doughnuts? Of course you don't. You've seen pictures, maybe, but you've never stayed the night, or bellied up to the counter.

You most likely have never experienced any true oddball Western Americana, because it has been bypassed, plowed under, or replaced by strip malls selling "Indian" souvenirs made by slave laborers in North Korean labor camps.

Joe Bethancourt's "Ride Back in Time" is medicine for that. A glimpse into another America entirely, where any proper lady like as not packed a little snubnosed .32 in her purse, and nobody asked about it because they just assumed anyone with any smarts was always armed. It really was a free country once, and some of us remember it fondly.

If you are looking for some solid story songs, campfire tall tales, and banjo picking right out of a 1930s poker parlor, this recording is for you. It is a nice mix of old traditional Western tunes, Bethancourt originals, and some new stuff by contemporary Western songwriters you will never hear of otherwise. The entire project was made possible by Random Factors, an outfit that leaves a recording setup with a performing artist and just lets them do what comes natural. It is part financial venture, part historical archive.

The humor here is sometimes hokey, but also infused with that essentially Western optimism that is for some of us a tonic for the current fad of apathetic irony. Because the music is self-recorded, there are cuts that vary wildly in tone and texture. Each is a bit of a sonic experiment, some working better than others, but overall an accurate depiction of a live Bethancourt evening. Joe is the real thing, a favorite at the annual Tombstone Western Music Festival, and an Arizona musical institution since before it was illegal to fart in public around here.

If you are looking for a slick, modern production, then never mind. But if you're the kind of person that still thinks target shooting, not baseball, is America's national pastime, if you'd rather spend your nights listening to a lone banjo out under the stars than sitting in some greasy dive being deafened by bass and drums, then this disc is something you need to hear.