The very title Mr.
Jukebox signals that Joshua Hedley's 2018 debut album is a throwback to an older time -- one when jukeboxes were a common sight in the corner bar.
Roughly, that would be the '60s, and from its honeyed production to its dollar-bin cover art, that's precisely the era Hedley evokes on this swift 30-minute album.
Hedley's fantasia of '60s country is constructed in equal parts from Nashville and Texas: he can kick up some dust on a hardwood honky tonk floor, but the music is given a warm, shiny polish and tight arrangements that recall the heyday of the Music City.
If Hedley is sometimes a bit too tidy a singer, that suits the precision tuning of his music.
This isn't a casual reconstruction of a bygone era; it's a careful reconstruction of all the attributes of '60s mainstream country.
It's pretty irresistible as a sheer time capsule, but Hedley isn't relying just on sonics; he constructs ten sturdy songs that give Mr.
Jukebox the foundation to be something more than nostalgia.
By exceeding so well in his craft, Hedley makes the old sounds feel new again.