Terry Allen

Terry Allen

Juarez (Sugar Hill) We all know Terry Allen: songwriter, performer, visual artist. From Lubbock. It's a safe bet, however, that few fans have heard his debut, Juarez. Released in 1975, it's been out of print for years and wasn't initially conceived as an LP, but rather as songs accompanying an artwork installation. Original copies were released with a set of lithographs illustrating the characters that populate a world the songs create, and what a world it is. Juarez follows two couples on separate alcohol- and sex-fueled sprees that meet in Cortez, Colo., on their way to Mexico; what results is murder and a chase through the Southern California desert. It's told with the sparest of backing, mostly Allen's piano with the occasional acoustic guitar. As such, it bears the simple elegance of film noir (Orson Welles' Touch of Evil comes to mind), in which one's never sure of what's lurking in the shadows. Because of this, the album's songs don't always work, exceptions being the highway intensity of "There Oughta Be a Law Against Sunny Southern California" and the dusty Tex-Mex cantata, "Cantina Carlotta." Perhaps it's the piano, but Juarez recalls the early work of Randy Newman, who paints simple stories using rudimentary tools and makes it all seem like cinemascope. This reissue has a two-song epilogue tacked on, both titled "El Camino" and recently recorded with a full band by Lloyd Maines. One, an instrumental, is perfect closing credits; the other is just jaunty enough for the outtake reel.