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FOR FANS OF: Eric Bachmann, Richard Buckner, Neko Case, Centro-Matic, David Dondero, John Doe, Jakob Dylan, Steve Earle, Rachel Flotard, Howe Gelb, Gin Blossoms, Gov’t Mule, Ben Harper, John Hiatt, Kelly Hogan, Iron & Wine, Will Johnson, The Marcus King Band, Brian Lopez, Los Lobos, Lucero, Old 97s, John Prine, Nathaniel Rateliff, Langhorne Slim, M. Ward, Kim Ware and the Good Graces, Chris Whitley, Lucinda Williams

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“Hey babe.” Anyone who’s ever spoken with pedal steel guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Jon Rauhouse has heard his signature greeting, at once playful and genuine. It’s just the way Rauhouse sounds when he says it: affable, anachronistic, hep, like a man from another time.

The catchphrase informs one of my favorite songs on One Day Will Never Come Back, Rauhouse’s new album of bruised and tender songs with singer/songwriter Blaine Long. Titled, you guessed it, “Hey Babe,” Long wrote the song with Jon—deep into treatment for cancer at the time—at the front of his mind. “I’m an earthbound angel stuck on this merry-go-round/We take it day by day, night by night,” Long sings with plaintive resignation in his voice.

One Day Will Never Come Back is a slim volume, only seven songs, but like At Fillmore East, Giant Steps, and Maggot Brain before it, it packs a lot of life and death into the proceedings, alternating between black comedy, celebratory rave-ups, and warmhearted expressions of thankfulness. Weaving together touches of desert twang, Byrdsian chime, and soulful horn arrangements and into its Americana contours, it represents a deep friendship and connection between Long and Rauhouse. With Rauhouse acting as producer, they cut the album at Sonic Piranha Studio, a familiar zone to both songwriters, who record their podcast The Musicians Guide to Everything podcast there, exploring the ins-and-outs of the industry with guests like Jakob Dylan (The Wallflowers), Billy Bob Thornton, and Neko Case, all of whom Rauhouse has accompanied on record.

Best known for his three-chair turn on The Voice in 2016, Blaine has shared the stage with artists like Beth Hart, Clint Black, Jonny Lang, and Nils Lofgren. He and Rauhouse found themselves sharing stages together after Long invited Rauhouse to join him for a “Christmas” or “New Year’s” gig at Tarbell’s years back. One Day Will Never Come Back finds them joined by a close-knit roster including Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, Rachel Flotard (Visqueen), Jesse Valenzuela (The Gin Blossoms), and Lindsay Cates and Megyn Neff, Rauhouse’s compatriots in the SunPunchers.

Trading lyrics and musical ideas all along the way, Rauhouse and Long cut into a soulful racket with “Thanksgiving,” an ode to the life of a gigging musician that includes Rauhouse in a rare vocal turn, confessing in a groggy voice: “64 and I’m older than Elvis and Jesus.” Bad role model Charles Bukowski makes a lyrical appearance, as do “The Garden of Eden,” alongside “tombstone stop signs” and “bad girls and long nights.”

On “Pretty Love Song,” the duo welcome Valenzuela to sit in. For Long and Rauhouse, who grew up in the Phoenix metropolitan sprawl, it was heavy with meaning. “Growing up, I couldn’t listen to non-Christian music, but somehow I got a hold of The Gin Blossoms first album, Up and Crumbling,” Long says. “I had to hide that cassette, when you’re a sheltered little kid, you hold onto those items like gold, they're little scriptures. It was a big moment. He just turned our song into a Gin Blossoms song in seconds.”

Rauhouse–whose doctor has since deemed his cancer “treatable, not terminal”—also found himself drawing from his own background, including a harrowing scene from his youth in which Rauhouse witnessed the shooting of a friend in a mobile home.

“I’ve never written autobiographical music before,” he confesses. “But I have a completely different view on the whole world now.” Zooming far enough out, he knows that the moment we have is fleeting. I like to read the title One Day Will Never Come Back as a recognition that the only moment we really have is this one. These seven songs, about near misses and second chances, find Rauhouse and Long living in that moment, open to the pain, open to the laughs, open to it all.

~ Jason P. Woodbury