IN THE TRADITION OF THE GREAT TROUBADOURS BEFORE HIM, Jack Grelle spent years hopping trains and hitchhiking across the US. You can sense the rambling spirit in his music combining elements of traditional country, folk, and rock’n roll. With his finger on the pulse of current issues, it’s no wonder that Rolling Stone claims he is “a progressive honky-tonk hero arriving at just the right time in Trump’s America.” On his fourth album, If Not Forever, a sense of homecoming and reflection can be felt. If his previous albums showed a modern storyteller writing about his perceptions of the world today, with this new album, you have that weary storyteller looking at the man he has become and the people around him. Not content with meeting expectations set out for country artists, the musical arrangements and lyrics on Grelle’s fourth album continue his tradition of defying labels and expectations. Recorded and co-produced by Cooper Crain (Bitchin Bajas, CAVE) in Chicago, IL, there is an expansion on his classic honky-tonk stylings. Many songs reach new musical heights with a nod to the likes of Tom Petty, CCR and Doug Sahm. Inspired by tours and collaborations with Patrick Haggerty and Lavender Country (who released the world’s first gay country album written in 1973) Grelle seems to acknowledge the history of the genre that influenced him while simultaneously disrupting it.