Rocky Tippit
Young and Pretty
Red Boot Music

“There Goes Another Love Song,” a 1975 hit single by the Outlaws, is a classic Southern rock number. Such a song title is a fitting theme for Texan singer-songwriter-musician Rocky Tippit’s current release Young and Pretty. The album is built on a love-coated Southern rock foundation. “If you are not in love with a person, or an idea, then you can’t really care about it, and there’s no music in it,” he clarifies.

Penning all the songs (he shares writing credit on “Raw”) and co-producing and co-engineering the record, Rocky opens with the driving “Burn,” (“I’ve had enough/I’ve learned to love/And still it didn’t change a goddamn thing”). This is perhaps the standout tune alongside the weeping guitar work of “Never” (“I will love you always/But I can’t reach you nowadays/I can’t touch your heart of stone”). The steady groove of the title track encapsulates the record’s subject matter, but what is more superb is the guitar crunch of “Texas Sun.” “Sun” (“The Texas sun, it burns my skin”) is the heaviest track on the album, paying homage to the several hard-rocking numbers performed by Southern rock titans Lynyrd Skynyrd (the album’s “Wait” is another up-tempo, pounding side). Before departing from his musical journey of love, Rocky leaves us with “White Cadillac.” It has traces of ‘50s rockabilly (why not the iconic pink Cadillac of the rockabilly rebels? Maybe Rocky wanted to give everything a different spin).

Young and Pretty is just that. No, we’re not talking about Rocky, but what the ideals of love should be. That’s not to say that love is a very simple matter. While the album is not boundary-stretching, it does leave a good taste in Southern rock’s mouth and should whet your musical appetite if you want a bass-guitars-drums lineup of love-drenched Southern rock. And Rocky Tippit excels with great tenacity.

by Jeff Boyce