https://open.substack.com/pub/phonyriceunit/p/album-review-qualified-country-gold?r=qbihw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Music can be fun and not suck. Just try telling that to the fine folks at Big Loud and you’ll get a guffaw, and be scolded for not understanding songwriting. And that should be no surprise. Though the folks along Music Row see him daily, they do not know his name is Eli Fox, and he is making music that is both meaningful and fun.
The man who penned a line as simple and deep as, “Cold coffee in Silver Lake. Six dollars, guess it must be great. Got to have a credit card to pay for cold coffee in Silver Lake,” is younger than his temperament implies. At 26, Eli Fox has now four (to this writer’s knowledge) records out, and prefers fly fishing out by the Caney Fork over Broadway. Fox is traveled, and his writing demonstrates that.
His songs are at home on a drive through Paradise Valley, on your way to notch off another National Park, or stuck in traffic after a passive aggressive email from your boss at a job that you dream of quitting. The melodies on his 9 track sojourn, “Qualified Country Gold,” are inviting, rolling off the lips of a whistler, but require some advanced knowledge of your instruments to really get under your fingers. A lifelong fan of John Hartford, it shows, but only if you’re looking for it. Fox never steals ideas, and that’s a noble pursuit in today’s world. Like a great author, he relates melodies you feel you may know, but can’t quite place, to affirm the emotions of his words. He’s a chef that makes a soup that feels like home, and yet, you know you’ve never had this exact soup before.
‘Qualified Country Gold’ is an Eli Fox album. It’s an album only he could make, and while it won’t push the dial on any iHeartMedia stations, it should. It’s music to ski to, dance to, drink to, and quite frankly, do anything except toil mindlessly over work to. The album should be on your next road trip, to remind you the observed life is well worth living.
4/5 stars because I reject perfection.