When Roger Cline decided to cut a CD, after some prodding from friends and fellow musicians, he wanted a project as varied as his own musical history. With his 2020 release So InClined, he did just that.
Raised in Maryland with the Mason-Dixon Line just up the road from his home, Cline was influenced early by his parents’ record collection—Johnny Cash, Ernest Tubb, Hank Williams, Tennessee Ernie Ford. Even before he can remember, they took him to Sunset Park where he remembers watching the stage from atop his father’s shoulders. He says he doesn’t remember the names of the musicians, although his dad and mom told him they saw Cash there, but he does remember that they all had their names written up the frets of their guitars in pearl.
Before long, playing the record player wasn’t enough to satisfy his musical urges, so Cline bought a guitar at the local furniture store, one that still hangs on the wall in his office. He took lessons for about a year to get started learning to play and hooked up with his guitar teacher’s son, a drummer, to start a band, playing junior high school dances at the local teen center.
When the band started veering away from rock and roll, Cline took up the bass and played in several other bands.
“We played a lot of good music, but we never made any money, of course,” says Cline. His last year of high school he joined a friend’s band playing what he called “music for the older generation”—a lot of country, a little bit of pop rock and such songs as “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” It wasn’t rock and roll, he says, but it was good experience.
The band played every week, usually Friday and Saturday night, and made money. He said, “Of course, I had hair down over my shoulders, but they accepted me.” One favorite recollection was when his band was hired to play his school’ faculty Christmas party.
Cline says, “My English teacher heard I was in the band. I wasn’t a very good student of hers, so we didn’t get along, but when she found out I was going to play at the Christmas party, she asked if we could learn ‘Alley Cat.’ When we played it, she got out there and danced, grinning from ear to ear. For the rest of the semester, I was her favorite student.”
Cline took a break from performing bands after he married and started playing music in church and leading the worship team for their home church for ten or fifteen years. The gospel music influence is apparent in some of the songs on the new CD, such as “The Winds and the Waves” and “Why Do You Treat Him Like You Do?” which he had pitched to Jim Hurst, who recorded it on his 2016 recording JHT-1.
“I could have done an all-gospel album,” says Cline, “but I didn’t want to do that. Of the thirteen songs on the album, he wrote ten, one a co-write, but he chose “The Outlaw” by Larry Norman, “one of the first Christian rockers back in the 70s,” whom Cline says has been all but forgotten. Cline chose this song at producer Johnny Williams’ suggestion that he have at least one track that featured him alone on his guitar.
The entire project highlights Cline’s guitar skill, obviously his first instrument. Guitarists might note that he used four different tunings, as well as “double picking” and a verse-guitar-melody break done in harmonics . He also sings lead on all but “At the Journey’s End,” which was sung by Jeanette Williams, who also sings background harmony vocals with husband Johnny on other tracks. Cline says he didn’t sing much in his early years in bands, but when he started leading worship, it was necessary to sing. Then he started singing more when he started playing in some small groups. He also sang lead on a couple of songs when he recorded earlier with an Irish group.
Another big shift in Roger Cline’s musical journey reflected on this album was his encounter with bluegrass music. In the early to-mid-90s, he started going to Friday night jams at the local bluegrass store in Baltimore. These led him to other jams.
“I liked that the age barriers were broken. The music connected so many different people, which was refreshing. The music was nice too—predictable enough so it’s easy to play with other people.” At the time, he was feeling burnout playing in church, where he was mainly chording.
“Some people will play and then just put it down. I was kind of close, but when I discovered bluegrass, I picked up again.” He still keeps his musical boundaries flexible, a little Americana, a little folk, but he wanted to have enough bluegrass to qualify as a bluegrass CD and, he says, “I think we just squeezed right under the wire, and I like that.”
The decision to record this album came with a push from fellow singer-songwriter Debbie Durant, whose 2015 album was produced by Johnny Williams. Cline liked how Durant’s CD turned out and said, “If Johnny and Jeanette would do it, I’d be tickled to death.” Johnny agreed and they recorded most of the tracks at Wesley Easter’s Eastwood studio. “I couldn’t have asked for a better place to go.”
Cline chose to break the rule of thumb, “no more than two instrumentals on an album,” by including “Easy Street,” “Monarch Evening” and the lilting “The Distant Shore,” all original compositions, each with completely different feel, featuring Cline on guitar with a variety of instruments backing him up.
The opening track “You Fell from the Sky” is one written most recently, a love song that is a departure from the gospel influence while staying in sync with the body of work on the recording. Cline also included “Flat River Girl,” which has the flavor of an old-time tune. Considered a traditional tune, the song’s lyrics have been attributed to Mick Hanly, credited in the liner notes.
As a finished product So InClined offers something for any musical taste—except, by design, “new country.” Listeners are likely to find that their favorite track varies from one listen to the next, just as Roger Cline would have it.