Chris Gardner

Can’t Go Home

Split Dog Records

Over the course of his life, Americana vocalist Chris Gardner has become deeply influenced by such notables as the Beatles, the Eagles, and Bob Seger. The impact is directly responsible for his decision to write and perform music. Gardner began performing in Houston locally at such venues as McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, Warehouse Live, Dan Electro’s, and the now-closed iconic Fitzgerald’s. In 2000, Gardner began to perform nationally at festivals from LA to NYC, including Nashville’s Country Music Fest.

Gardner recorded his 2015 debut album, Down the Road, and followed up with 2017’s Summertime; 2018’s A Lot More Than a Little; 2019’s Hangin’ on the Line; 2020’s Second Helping, which became the 2025 Americana Album of the Year; 2022’s Stumblin’ Through the Neon; and 2024’s A Love Thing. The latter scored 26 weeks on the Roots Music Report’s Top 50, peaking at No. 4 on the Americana Country chart, and included three Top 20 singles. Can’t Go Home is Gardner’s ninth album overall; all songs are written by Gardner.

Vocalist Gardner is joined by guitarists Kenny Corday, Wayne Turner, Charlie Lair, David Gallego, and Guilherme Fonseca, who also plays mandolin. The piano and Hammond B-3 are by Paul English. The fiddle is by Kevin Carter. The bassists are Rankin Peters, Mark Andes, and David Craig, while the drums are played by Tyson Sheth or Todd Harrison. Backing vocalists include Terri Luedtke, Betsy Burke, Tommie Lee Bradley, and Charlie Stewart. The album is co-produced by Andy Bradley and Gardner.

The title track, “Can’t Go Home,” opens with some beautiful guitar as Gardner sings, “I was a young man sitting on the edge of the river soaking up the summer sun, it’s been a real hard spring and a long cold winter waiting for my time to come. Now many years have passed since I left home, went out to find a dream, now I’m back in town and I’m driving around, but I don’t recognize a thing. There’s a place I go in the back of my mind, it was long, long ago in a simpler time, when I could be happy, you could be free, we could be anything we wanted to be, but I can’t go back and I can’t slow it down, the wheels spin faster as the years roll on, I’ll keep on searching for something I lost long ago, but I can’t go home.”

The hilarious “Queen of the Trailer Park” begins with Gardner as he chimes, “Well, she used to be a looker, back in her prime, she’d drive the boys crazy with a wink of her eye, they’d come chasing her from all over town, but I’m the lucky one that finally settled her down, through the years something happened I don’t know, some where along the way, she kinda let herself go. Now, she ain’t sentimental she likes to be alone, she eats her meat straight off of the bone, she sips fine whiskey from a dixie cup, and no matter what I do for her it’s never enough. I used to think I loved her and I knew it for sure, she used to be a beauty queen but not anymore. Tube socks and orange crocs, flip flops and muffin tops, she’s got so much more than I’ll ever need I like the flesh floppin out of those skin tight clothes, yeah the ring through her lip and the one in her nose, oh baby, you got all my heart, you’re the queen of the trailer park.”

On “The Rocky Road,” Gardner chants, “I left her standing in the rain in Colorado and I told her someday I would come back home. hen I headed down that road to find tomorrow, I was all alone, I was all alone. she said that she would sometimes think about me, and the times that I used to hold her in my arms, but maybe she’d be better off without me, where did I go wrong, where did I go wrong. And I sometimes sit and wonder how love drifted out of sight. And I won’t forget the feeling I’d get when I held her late at night, I’d look into those deep brown eyes and ask darling please won’t you walk down that rocky road with me,” featuring some truly great harmony.

On “Human,” another introspective song, Gardner groans, “It was long ago, but not so far away, the world seemed so much easier in my younger days. There was so much we could do, so many changes to go through, we never had the time to sort it out, but time goes by and the changes come, you never really know you got a good thing ’til it’s gone, yeah right before your eyes you see the best years of your life passing by, and there is no way to slow ’em down. I’m only human, I’m no Superman and things don’t always work out the way we plan, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and sometimes you take the fall, it’s alright…I’m only human after all.”

“Crystal Visions” features some fine piano from Paul English, as Gardner moans, “I have spent a lifetime running straight into the wind, never stopping to look back over my shoulder, every time that I’d fall down, I’d pick myself up again, now it’s over. Stumbling through the neon as the camera blinks an eye ain’t it funny how sometimes you can’t remember, little bits and pieces of a time gone long ago, and once thought gone forever. Here I am stuck in the middle of a world that’s getting stranger every day…but crystal visions never fade away…they never fade away.”

On the slow ballad “One True Love,” Gardner bursts, “I think this time every things gonna be alright though it won’t be easy living without you in my life, we always had each other baby, whenever things got tough. We always had our love but I guess it wasn’t enough. We could spend a lifetime wondering what went wrong…’cause it doesn’t matter who I’m with, it’s you I’m dreaming of…my one true love, maybe in another place, or some other time, there’s a world for long lost love songs like yours…and mine.”

“The Second Time Around,” with some infectious drumming, features Gardner as he belts, “Well the bags are packed, the guns were loaded as I headed on down the line, I took one last look in the rearview mirror to see what I was leaving behind. For ten years I gave you all I had, ten long years I tried to be the kind of man to keep you satisfied. But sometimes that’s just not enough, sometimes you want it all, but I don’t know if there’s enough love to give. Sometimes you gotta die a little for your new life to be found, and it’s better now, the second time around.”

On “Right Outside Your Door,” with more fine piano and the late Kenny Cordray on guitar, Gardner croons, “Stay with me, just for a little while and let me hold you close in my arms. For the time is going by so fast and baby, tomorrow I’ll be gone. So won’t you lay with me for hust a little while and let me remember just how it feels ’cause we said it all so many times it’s hard to believe, it’s happening for real…and I hope in time, your gonna find what you think that your looking for. But just maybe, maybe it was right outside your door.”

On all the songs, Chris Gardner takes us back in time, yearning for the way things used to be. He can be hilarious but usually sings of more somber moments. Gardner’s emotional vocals have great clarity. Listen and enjoy.

Richard Ludmerer

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