Mark Mathis
We Both Was Young
Freshwater Records; 2008
The beauty behind Southern fiction is how an author can turn a lovely phrase by providing detailed descriptors of the physical scenery and the emotional landscape of the characters, but still somehow manages to leave the plot and its larger ramifications open to interpretation. Writers from the American South seem to possess this innate, almost perverse ability to effectively display the realities of Southern social conventions in stark relief and then swiftly turn those customs on their respective heads. Mark Mathis looks to join the ranks of these masterful storytellers with the release of his debut record We Both Was Young, an 11-song project detailing the intimate, personal conversations the main character has with his wife and family at various times in their shared history. His easygoing, yet quite sincere style easily evokes comparisons to Joe Henry and Iron & Wine, while retaining his own personality, as best displayed in tracks like “Sharecropper Takes a Colored Wife,” “Prenup,” and “I am the Deep Blue Sea.” Mathis is a songwriter whose talents and skills should garner him some increased attention and will prove be more than attractive to those music fans with a proclivity towards deep, resonant stories told over accessible country-folk rhythms.