Rick
Yost makes his living these days covering classic rock and blues songs at
places like the West End Pub and onboard the Texas Queen on Lake Ray Hubbard.
He plays occasionally at Poor David's Pub and the Winedale Tavern, where
listeners more often get to hear his original stuff. His album, Wichita
Falls, showcases his originals. As with much good music, labels are inadequate.
It's a simply produced album with Yost's excellent, versatile guitar work
and just the right touches in the right places of Jay Wilson's sax, Mark
Rainbolt's guitar and bass, Paul Alaniz's guitar and keyboard and occasional
back-up vocals. It's also a literate album, with references to Zarathustra,
( an alternative spelling for Zoroaster, the founder of the ancient Persian
religion of Zoroastrianism, which teaches that good will eventually triumph
over evil )
the Brothers Grimm, Nietzsche and others.
Yost's Alvarez guitar always soars, and his writing occasionally shines
through the album's darkness.
In "Magic Theater", inspired by Herman Hesse's novel Steppenwolf,
he comments that "the reward to an angel is the height from which it
sees,..."
It's
a nice, upbeat phrase that could go on any happy soul's refrigerator magnet,
until you hear him sing the rest of the sentence: "...all the wingless
wonders that crawl upon their knees." If Yost doesn't put that phrase
on the front and back of a T-shirt, he's missing a real opportunity.
Yost returned to Dallas on July 4th, 1998, after being sidelined in Florida
for seven years. He's a welcome addition back to the local scene.
Tom Geddie, Buddy Magazine