Artist: Lone Justice
Album: Live at the Palomino, 1983
Label: Omnivore Recordings
Release Date: 4.13.19
Be sure to handle Live at the Palomino, 1983 with care. A combustible document of one of Lone Justice’s lively summer performances at the cow-punk crazed Palomino Club in North Hollywood that year, unearthed by original member Ryan Hedgecock, this previously unissued concert set clocks in at just over 32 minutes and every song goes off like a lit pack of firecrackers in a hot, stuffy room.
Every one, that is, except the yearning opener “You Are the Light,” a Depression-era country ballad of unvarnished elegance, with sweet vocal harmonies and lonesome guitar off in the distance. It’s like nothing else on Live at the Palomino, 1983, as the foursome of Hedgecock, Marvin Etzioni, Don Willens and Maria McKee—one of Lone Justice’s early lineups—set the place ablaze with fiery carousels of country-rock, as the buoyant, high-stepping “Drugstore Cowboy” and an even wilder “How Lonesome Has Life Been” set the stage for the sweaty and propulsive rockabilly slingshot “Cotton Belt.” Practically leaping out of its skin, “This World is Not My Home (I’m Just a Passin’ Through)” jumps rhythmically and McKee lets out a whoop as the band rises to a red-hot, rolling boil, similar to that of “The Train.” Hopping aboard while it’s moving might be dangerous.
One song seems to bleed into the next, as Lone Justice barely ever takes a breather. Just before launching into a driving cover of “Working Man’s Blues,” the vivacious McKee—a youthful, charming wildcat in her element here—yells out, “I love Merle Haggard!” It’s clear she does, and the others are just as enthusiastic, as McKee leads an up-tempo, gritty charge through one of Haggard’s classics. They have just as much reverence for the likes of George Jones and Loretta Lynn, and in performing at the iconic honky-tonk where heroes such as Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens and Patsy Cline made history, Lone Justice is inspired, daring and reckless, even closing with a rollicking, loose and delightfully ragged take on the drawling duet “Jackson,” made famous by Johnny and June Carter Cash.
Economically packaged with vintage photos, a smattering of memorabilia and informative notes from Hedgecock and Etzioni (who pens a lovely tribute to the deceased Willens), Live at the Palomino, 1983 is an imperfect recording, a two-track find by Hedgecock that’s a little dusty and dirty. McKee’s angelic vocals feature prominently, piercing through the bounding frenzy with girlish glee. And there’s a closeness that is inescapable, almost claustrophobic. The crowd reactions, stage banter and spirited playing, however, are clearly captured for posterity, transporting every witness back to that time and place, when Lone Justice would blow the doors off the California landmark and laugh about it when their work was done.
—Peter Lindblad
Was Lone Justice opening for Rank and File? If so, I was there!