Floating around the Middle Tennessee area for a few years now, singer-songwriter-guitarist and “laid back” enthusiast Glen Wagner plays happily soul-baring, transition-into-lake-life-inspired originals that musically blend the likes of Jimmy Buffett and John Fogerty with other popular easy listens in Wagner’s 10-track, independently produced debut album, Perfect Piece of Time, released March 2021.
Docked in a Wednesday night residency gig that began in June 2018, at La Vergne’s Memories Bar and Grill, the Wag landed concentric shows, drifting out to spots in Mt. Juliet and Lebanon, into the DoubleTree’s Burger Bar in Murfreesboro and, eventually, playing the perfect atmospheres for Wagner’s live shows: Hoppy’s Harbor Grill at Fate Sanders Marina and Percy Priest Lake’s 4 Corners Marina. All the while, Wagner was fine-tuning the album’s form into the ultimate Wagger-ready Perfect Piece of Time we can hear today (Waggers are what you call a group of Glen Wagner fans).
Perfect Piece of Time‘s concept seems a bucket list accomplishment of a successful, New Jersey-grown, family-owned-dairy farmer retired to Tennessee for a relaxing next chapter of peaceful living flooded with nostalgia, a lake life and the glint in his eye reflecting a sunny future. The feelgood proclamation and ostensibly autobiographical title track, “Perfect Piece of Time,” with accents of The Beach Boys’ group harmony, captures the jist of the album. And there’s an amiable kind of Australian, mid-career Paul Simon bongo groove in the cheeky “Favorite Smile,” one of three tracks harmonized with lady friend Emma Ohm.
There are calmer, more somber waters floated in Perfect Piece of Time as well. Musically, a sad, Chris Isaac-toned “A Place Called Home,” which uses the Wagner Dairy Farm in New Jersey (1917–2001) to emote an aging neighborhood patriarch’s attempt to pass down area memories and history passed to a young bicycler pedaling by after his mother’s yell to come home, which gives the geezer a realization of how time has passed and the earth he knew is moving on over time. Also on a somber note, Wagner’s voice resembles an American Records-period Johnny Cash vocal styling in the Guns N’ Roses’-style outro piano-ed, soldier-coming-home march, “Out and About,” melodiously accented by Garth Hudson-style saxophone runs. Small rocky waves are made trying to reel in and tie down some of the notes and harmonies attempted in the album’s softer tracks.
The run of tracks six through nine is great enough to put on a high school best friend’s lake mixtape to blast out of Dad’s pontoon boat’s stereo system.
Beginning at track six, “Let’s Lake It” is simply title-explanatory (just in case an explanation is needed, though: Sunshine. Baking. Tubin’. Moonlight. Bed.) and followed by “Quiet Little Cove,” a naptime Buffett groove about honeysuckle, eagles silently soaring and feet up on the seat (now, I don’t personally know this man, but it’s implied that the Wag perhaps lost his virginity in that cove . . . and, well, it’s what you’d want to listen to if you were there). “Something About the Sea” flows into Faces territory with the layered 12- and 6-string acoustics, and, written in 1983, “Something About the Sea” very well could be the 38-year-old single that stayed in the back of Wagner’s youthful mind for a lifetime, eventually the catalyst to finish the lifelong goal of making a record one day. Much respect to that, but next at the end of this four-song fun run is a Huey Lewis-ish, blues-rock piano-filled, mind-clutter murdering “Overthinkin’,” which is the goofiest and has the best pound-for-pound lyrics out of all of them.
Actually, all of these songs are lyrical gold mines, surpassing an ironic listen to genuinely find a well put together, very wholesome album when considering the amount of work, hope, love, time, patience, multiple influencing life factors and variables dealt with, and the intention of everyone involved with Perfect Piece of Time.
Wagner throws in little comedy bits at the end of songs, uses some wacky sound effects in others, and seems genuinely happy with every chord and line. It’s wholesome to the point of suspicion, having a life nice enough to work a country/beach album about it.
Because of all of that, 4 loud Pulses, where an asshole psychopath of a reviewer may give it 2.
Keep an eye out for Glen Wagner’s Perfect Piece of Time on Bandcamp and CD Baby. Until then, singles from the album (“Perfect Piece of Time,” “Let’s Lake It” and “One”) can be found on Spotify, Amazon and YouTube. CD copies are available wherever Wagner is found. Find more on the artist and upcoming shows on the Wag’s Facebook page under Glen Wagner Singer/Songwriter.
