thedailytimes.com : Your 24/7 news source

For all of his prowess with a pen, songwriter Chris Knight can't quite seem to articulate what makes a song worthy.

He knows it when he hears it, and when it doesn't sound right -- as so much of pop-country does to a traditionalist like Knight these days -- he'd rather set a studio booth on fire than put out something he feels is sub-par.

But what it is about a song that elevates it to his standards of purity, honesty, grit and passion ... well, there's no clear-cut definition, he told The Daily Times this week.

"I've cut songs in the studio and had it in my head the way it ought to sound, and then they would come out sounding like Top 40 radio," Knight said. "The song I had in my mind was a bad-ass song -- greasy or whatever -- and it would turn out sounding like a pop-country song for whatever demo I was working on. I've been in the studio with really good musicians, and I'll just come in and say, 'This ain't getting it; this ain't what this song is.'

"I don't know what it is. It just has to feel suitable to me. I've got a lot of songs still out there that I've written; I'm just not sure they're songs that I want to record. There are songs I've done that have a certain commercial thing to them, like 'Too Close to Home,' but in general, I get rid of that stuff. I tell the band, 'Ya'll don't have to play that good; let's just play the song like we're in a bar somewhere, playing it for the first time.'"

Knight's humble drawl and stoic attitude reflect the roughshod, ramshackle nature of his rural upbringing in Kentucky. Born in 1960, he cut his teeth first on the country of his mother and father, and later on the folk-rock music of master songwriters like John Prine and J.J. Cale. At 15, he took over his brother's guitar, and his sibling, who worked the second shift in the nearby coal mines, took notice of Knight's growing talent.

Encouraged by his family, he tinkered with music until after graduation from Western Kentucky University, when he threw himself full-time into writing. Working for the Kentucky Department for Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, he wrote on the side, submitting his songs to Nashville. Urged on by those impressed with his abilities, he took the plunge in 1994, quitting his job and landing work as a songwriter with a publishing contract.

During those years before releasing his self-titled debut, Knight recorded a number of demo songs that would circulate among fans for years before producer Frank Liddell decided to dust them off and give them a second life as "The Trailer Tapes." That was in 2007 -- and to everyone's surprise, including Knight's, the album did well.

So well, in fact, that it charted on the Billboard Country Albums chart. Not high, but high enough for a guy whose approach to country is about as hardcore as early Steve Earle, and on Sept. 15, the second batch of those demos -- "Trailer II" -- will hit stores. They're rough, like the man himself, and you can almost hear the uncertainty of an artist who's still finding his sea legs.

"The big difference (in listening to those early demos) is that when I wrote all of those songs and recorded them, I hadn't done a lot of shows," he said. "I hadn't played live with a band very much, and that's what I picked up on the most -- just how I was starting to figure out how to sing the songs and get them across, and how to be comfortable in the studio.

"They just struck me as being really raw. I don't have a lot of foresight into things, and I wasn't sure what they'd be worth to people, to tell you the truth. From what I did then to what I do now, there's quite a bit of difference."

But the songwriting is as cut-to-the-bone as it's always been. Take, for example, the opening lines of the song "It Ain't Easy Being Me": "There ought to be a town somewhere, named for how I feel / I could be the mayor down there and say welcome to Sorryville ..." Ever since releasing his debut record more than a decade ago, Knight has found a musical compass that's honest and true whenever he sits down to write.

He may never land one of his songs on mainstream country radio -- a shame, to be sure, because they belong there more than most of what Nashville churns out these days -- but he continues to strike a chord with his fans. And that's worth more to Knight than a tractor-trailer full of gold records and a binder full of album sales receipts.

"You can have a commercial song that's a really good song -- people have them all the time, Tom Petty and Steve Earle and guys like that," Knight said. "I haven't really hit that point. It seems like all of my songs either sound too commercial and I hate them, or they're songs I love, and it just reaches my fanbase."