Craig Morgan - God, Family, Country

3.6

Rating

3.6/5

Flyctory.com Pros

Five really good new songs
Includes the amazing "That's What I Love About Sunday"
Good voice and good storytelling

Flyctory.com Cons

Five tracks are remasterings of legacy publications
In fact just an EP due to that reason

Craig Morgan is a decently big name in the Nashville country music scene. Even though he rarely hit the top chart placements, he grew a solid fan base since quit an army career and pursued being a musician. On 22nd May 2020, he released his seventh studio album – which is rather an EP with bonus material. Here is my view on God, Family, Country.

Craig Morgan – About The Artist

Craig Morgan Greer was born and grew up on Kingston Springs, TN, a small village East of Nashville. Born on 17th July 1964, he first became an emergency medical technician and then served the US army for nine and a half years, stayed in the reserves for more than six years after that. After the military period, he went back to Tennessee and did some no-music related jobs before he did demo singing for songwriters. This lead to his debut record Craig Morgan, which he released with Atlantic Records in 2000. Until 2006, he was regularly releasing albums every one or two years, which all either made it to the US Country Top 10 or just missed them. The biggest success was likely the 2005 My Kind of Livin’, which also featured his only Number 1 song so far, That’s What I Love About Sunday. Five more songs of his, all released in the 2000’s decade, made it to the Top 10. In the previous decade, he released two more albums, which both had similar success on the album chart side, but could not create any major single. God, Family, Country is his seventh studio album on top of one EP and two Best ofs.

Craig Morgan – God, Family, Country – Track by Track

The album lasts ten songs and 35 minutes. The first five tracks are new songs, the five thereafter are re-recordings.

1. The Father, My Son, And The Holy Ghost

In the morning I wake up, give her a kiss, head to the kitchen
Pour a cup of wake-me-up and try to rouse up some ambition
Go outside, sit by myself but I ain’t alone
I’ve got the Father, my son, and the Holy Ghost

The album starts with a new, very modern track. Very powerful song – not too surprising that this one has about 1.4 million views on YouTube only so far.

2. Soldier

Solider is another very catching track. A bit slower, with some very strong backing vocals. I would love to have Morgan’s voice a even more present in this track, but I definitely love to listen to him in this beautifully narrated love song.

3. Going Out Like This

Still a new country track, but the intense Going Out Like This is having significantly more classic country elements than the songs before. Morgan’s vocals are very intense – definitely a song I would love to listen to live on stage. Good one!

4. Whiskey

It runs like a river through my veins
And kills my liver, wrecks my brain
Makes me numb, but I still feel the pain
So I pour and pour, then pour some more
Till me and the bottle hit the floor
Another shot in the dark won’t stop
This heartache
Lord, I hate the taste of whiskey
But I drink it anyway

The song, which starts with the steel guitar and rather traditional song. The melody feels a bit of antiquated, but the vocals really made me smile (I am not a whiskey lover at all, sorry…). Thus I really enjoy this track as well.

5. Sippin’ On The Simple Life

Craig Morgan just has a nice voice – and I absolutely like this one as well.

No, there ain’t no right and there ain’t no wrong
Yeah, this just might be another drinkin’ song
What wrong with that

There is nothing wrong with that, Mr Morgan! No veto from my side!

6. God, Family and Country

So far, the album would have been a great EP with five new songs. Now we are coming to the historic song remasters. Of course, listening to them reminded me of Ilse De Lange’s recent publication Changes – where the “Best of”-section at the end of the album felt like a fail to me. God, Family and Country (is that even somehow the title track of this album?) is a 2002 song. It is very different to the five songs on the album before, a nice and intense ballad. Damn, I do not like these “blowing up albums by old songs” thing… But this song is really nice!

7. That’s What I Love About Sunday

Okay, if you read my posting from the very beginning, you know this one already. Great song, practically a one to one to the 2005 original. Why should you change it? It is just great as it is.

8. My Kind of Woman

The 2006 My Kind of Woman is a bit more guitar-heavy than the two classic tracks before. Thereby, it feels surprisingly modern. Cool song, definitely.

9. Almost Home

After God, Family and Country, Almost Home is the second track taken from the I Love It album. Comparably classic song with a lot of piano sound in it.

10. Lotta Man (In That Little Boy)

Lotta Man (In That Little Boy) is a die-hard country ballad with piano and strings and steel guitar – and just like a 1990’s country song, even though it has in fact been released as part of the My Kind of Livin’ album.

Craig Morgan – God, Family, Country – Spotify

Here is the Spotify widget to God, Family, Country:

Craig Morgan – God, Family, Country – My View

It is hard to give a fair judgement on Craig Morgan’s seventh album. He just promotes it as an album, even thoigh it is in fact an EP – at least for Craig Morgan fans, who will already have bought / downloaded the second half of God, Family, Country. Really sad, as the “new song section” is really promising and could have even made it to the Top Pick! rankings. But half of the songs of the album being simple remasterings is just too thin to me for that. Still an interesting listen – and if you do not know Craig Morgan’s stuff yet, you get a very nice ten song album, definitely.