Josh Halper - Alrightnik

By way of introduction, Nashville guitarist Josh Halper
quips, “I was raised in Tennessee by a Jewish, New York
Deadhead...” That’s not all you need to know about him,
but that curious and compelling combination captures the
mixture of humor, sorrow and musical virtuosity that
ripples throughout Halper’s debut album, Alrightnik.
Halper is a classically trained guitarist who studied at
Belmont University; he spent years playing in local bands
like Big Surr, Western Medication and Honey Locust, and
since graduating, he's become a go-to hired gun session
musician for artists like Chris Gantry, Emily Clement and
Bob Clement. Alrightnik bridges all these facets of Halper's
young but already prolific career. Constructed from the live
sets he'd been playing around town, the record comprises
a mix of deftly wry self-reflections, intricate guitar-forward
instrumentals and one faithful Randy Newman cover,
"Dayton, Ohio 1903."

Alrightnik is a fittingly sweeping and adventurous debut
that approaches life's misfortunes in a way that's
both thoughtful and comic. At times, it recalls Elliott Smith
and Modest Mouse, like on "Whale in a Field," an
exploration of the depths of melancholy during a long,
isolating year after an arrest. But that earnest introspection
is buoyed by Halper's sense of humor, which shines on
tracks like "Honest Feeling" and album highlight, "Who
Knows,"a frank and cheeky reflection on recklessness:
"Whatever we were doing was despicable," Halper sings,
"But it sure was fun." Meanwhile, instrumental cuts like
"Reflection" and "Desperation Waltz" draw as much from
Halper's classical background as they do from the finger-
picked flourishes of Leo Kottke, Bert Jansch and William Tyler.

Ultimately, these myriad musical strains are tied
together through a conceptual framework gleaned from the
Grateful Dead. The album's title, Alrightnik, is an American-Yiddish slang term for a successful person, but of the nouveau riche kind
— a little crass, a little smug. One could maybe read it as a
slight reproach on the hordes of people flooding Halper's hometown of Nashville, but it's more a sly, sightly self-
deprecating barb for a musician with a penchant for bolo ties and shirts with eye-popping patterns, a guitarist who
knows how to wield his instrument for both a laugh and a
cry.