At the end of '73, Chris Gantry had in the can one of the weirdest
records ever cut, on or off Music Row. A songwriter, storyteller and
original Nashville outlaw, Chris started the wild new wave of young talent in town, a few years before Kristofferson, Mickey Newbury, Tony
Joe White, Dan Penn and dozens more. He'd already been writing for
years when, at the age of 25, his song, "Dreams of the Everyday House-
wife," was a Billboard Pop Top 40 hit and a #3 Country record for Glen
Campbell. He'd made his own records too-but so far, Chris Gantry
hadn't done anything like this-and that was kinda saying a LOT.
His music was a stylistic fusion: his 1967 album debut Introspection
sounded a little bit folk, a little bit pop and only a little bit country, with
smooth melodies and verdant string charts. But the 60s were afoot, and
by the time of Chris' second LP in 1970, Motor Mouth, his approach
had radicalized into a wide-eyed, hard-edged delivery. The critics dug
it, and Chris played on Johnny Cash's TV show, but the next Gantry
record didn't appear for five more years. And herein lies a tale: of drop-
ping out, of a vision-quest and an exorcism of sorts, and of sessions
for a bunch of songs so far out from Nashville norms that it's only now
they've seen release. This is the story of At the House of Cash.
