The Aquarian reviewed ‘Native Tongue’ by The Tasty Kings With Blondie Chaplin:
You’ve almost certainly never heard of Native Tongue, an album billed to the Tasty Kings with Blondie Chaplin. Recorded in Austin, Texas, over approximately 10 years and released by a small New York label in 2023, it was available only digitally and promoted minimally if at all. As such, it garnered little attention from music fans and critics before fading away in cyberspace. Now, though, it’s getting a CD edition and the second chance that it richly deserves.
Tasty Kings leader and guitarist Andrew Morse, who wrote all 10 of the record’s songs, isn’t well known. However, any rock fan who reads album credits will be familiar with the names of many of the other musicians who contributed to this release. Vocalist and guitarist Chaplin, for example, was a member of the Beach Boys in the early 1970s (he sang lead on Holland’s “Sail On, Sailor”) and has played on albums by the Byrds, the Band, the Rolling Stones, and numerous other groups. Also on hand are such A-list sidemen as bassist Darryl Jones, who has toured and recorded with the Stones since 1993; guitarist Charlie Sexton, who is perhaps best known for his years with Bob Dylan; and, on two tracks, the late keyboardist Ian McLagan, who was a member of Small Faces and Faces. Other players add drums, bass, dobro, sax, and more.
You don’t have to venture beyond the first few numbers on this third Tasty Kings album to suspect that you’re listening to a forgotten gem, and by the time you’ve heard the entire CD, your suspicions will have been confirmed. Chaplin’s gritty, heartfelt vocals and the band’s consummate musicianship are large plusses, and so are Morse’s deftly crafted lyrics and catchy Americana and folk-rock melodies.
Like Dylan, Morse often uses real-life places and events as mere jumping-off points for impressionistic verse that is sometimes abstruse but always richly detailed and memorable. “South America,” for example, is an enigmatic tune that Morse says was inspired by a woman with a birthmark that looked like a continent but that “falls into a bunch of hallucinogenic metaphors about a romance that self-destructed.”
The soulful “Done & Dusted,” which he wrote in New York during the quarantine, also employs unusual imagery, in this case to evoke a closed-down city. Another personal favorite is the funky “Oceans Unfaithful,” one of several rockers here that sound like something the late Warren Zevon might have recorded. Then there’s “Girl Next Door,” which Morse says reminds him of Lou Reed but is arguably more musically redolent of Rolling Stones ballads such as “Memory Motel” and “Fool to Cry.”
All four of these songs constitute highlights of the album, but so do the other six. – Jeff Burger