Album Notes

8 out of 10. Brecht is a troubadour in the Dylan sense. Wordy, poetic and existing in a space between Blonde on Blonde and the Basement Tapes...this is an excellent debut. - Americana UK

It is a testament to the songwriter's talent that the Great Ride is a trip worth retracing. - The Austin Chronicle

Have Guitar, Will Travel~
There are an infinite number of young, aspiring musicians armed with nothing more than a guitar and a ravenous appetite for success. But only a few ever make it as professional musicians. Austin-based singer-songwriter Chris Brecht is one artist who managed to crawl out of the masses to begin an impressive alt.country career that brims with promise. ~the Santa Fe Reporter

From the Seattle Weekly... In a lazy drawl that sounds like a hybrid cross between Ryan Adams' soulful North Carolina slur and Bob Dylan's off-pitch, nasal mutterings, Austin songwriter Chris Brecht croons about trains, lost love and the nomadic life with the same passion and timeless appeal of greats from Woody Guthrie to Willie Nelson. And his devotion to all things retro extends to his songwriting and recording techniques: not only does he use a typewriter to put his poetic travelin' songs to paper, his debut album, The Great Ride, was recorded entirely to 2" tape. - The Seattle Weekly

If Austin alt-country songwriter Chris Brecht’s debut record The Great Ride seems born of another era, that might be because Brecht himself is a little old-fashioned. He writes his songs on a typewriter. He doesn’t own a TV. And though digital recording is standard, Brecht committed The Great Ride to two-inch tape rather than computer memory....
I don’t think I’ll ever make a digital record, anymore,” Brecht says. “I don’t think that tape really makes [music] sound old or vintage; I just think that tape adds such a warmth and beauty that digital can’t quite capture.” Brecht sings songs about traveling by rail (trains show up in about half of his songs, something he attributes to living near them for a good portion of his life) and love lost. You know, the same stuff that Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan sang about. But while these themes could seem gimmicky or contrived in the wrong hands, Brecht’s songs feel genuine, his lazy drawl a cross between the soulful North Carolina slur of Ryan Adams’ early work and Dylan’s nasal, off-pitch utterings. But in his processes as well as his day to day existence, Brecht prefers the old school to the new....
- The Eugene Weekly

In late summer 2007, Chris Brecht teamed up with guitarist/producer Brad Rice (Ryan Adams, Son Volt, Keith Urban) to cut the Great Ride. Between Rice’s edgy guitar playing and Brecht’s beat-style lyricism, the sessions produced a moody, freewheeling musical adventure of alt-country landscape, and introduced Rice as a “live and let live” producer and Brecht as a standout songwriter in a town that is home to a thousand thriftstore poets.

... vividly illustrates the promise of a young songwriter. - KUT 90.5 FM