2024 – Don Aaron Mixon
By Phillip Smith; Oct. 26, 2024
Original source : phillycheezeblues.blogspot.com
I knew I was in for the
listen of a lifetime after just reading the back cover of Don Aaron Mixon’s double-album The Welcome Mat. What I had read was the narrative introduction and
title-track to this wonderful, coming-of-age, outlaw-county-rock opera. Like a
snake bite, this southern man’s version of The Who’s Tommy rapidly
grabbed my attention, and held my focused attention as Mixon sang about
growing up in The Welcome Mat trailer park in Pensacola, Florida.
With Mixon on vocals, guitars, pedal steel, bass, keyboard, mandolin,
harmonica, and drums, he is joined by long-time friend Lindberg Smith as
narrator, Rob Hammersmith on drums, and Maria Grigoryeva on
violin.
I love how Mixon floors the gas pedal after the initial introduction with “Double Wide Soul”. This song rocks with a searing ferocity and is generously slathered in grease. Heavy, slide-infused and grinding guitar riffs propel Mixon’s anthem to his hell-raising, neighborhood daredevil friend in “The Myth of Lindberg Smith”. It’s a hell of an homage. Gonzo-inspired stories of bikers, heroin addicts, seasonal thieves, and Mexican wrestlers lead into the key events which pushed Don into a defining moment of self-defense in “The Welcome Mat (Pt. 1) as narrated by Smith. Mixon’s song “Coal Miner & Little Boy Blue” has a Springsteen, blue-collar appeal. I dig the CB radio-inspired lyrics. Mixon adds a mysterious cloak of suspense to “Peeping Tom & Tammy” on guitar while Smith tells the eerie tale of a trailer break-in overnight which wake young Mixon and his mama from their sleep. I love the opening line, ‘She gets up at the ass-crack of dawn’ which ushers in “A Hard Way to Make an Easy Living”. The amazing guitar runs and hard-scrabble lyrics have a genuine Tom Petty feel. “The Welcome Mat (Pt. III) serves as the epilog of Don’s life at the trailer park. This music-infused narration brings The Welcome Mat to an end with a nearly ten-minute long bundle of fascinating stories about hooligans, ghouls, graverobbers, feuds, UFO sightings, Pentecostal preachers, and Old Joe.
Don Aaron Mixon’s The Welcome Mat sits at the top of my favorite albums of the year so far. It’s absolutely brilliant.
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