Don Aaron Mixon: “The Welcome Mat” (2024) Vinyl Review

The music on Don Aaron Mixon’s new release, The Welcome Mat, is autobiographical, touching upon his years growing up in Pensacola, Florida. It’s also compelling and at times exciting. Don Aaron Mixon not only wrote the material, but plays most of the instruments on this release, including guitar, pedal steel, bass, keyboards, mandolin, harmonica and drums. He is joined by Maria Grigoryeva on violin, and also by Lindberg Smith, who provides some vocal work on several tracks. Rob Hammersmith (of Rockets To Ruin) plays drums on a few tracks. This is a double album, and the gatefold contains several old photographs. The music, by the way, is presented on a beautiful clear green vinyl for the first record, and clear orange for the second.

Side 1

The double album opens with “The Welcome Mat (Intro),” and is one of the tracks to feature Lindberg Smith, who delivers the lyrics as spoken word. “Hi, welcome to the park,” he says, and introduced himself as a childhood friend of Don Aaron Mixon. This narration places us in a very specific place, “The Welcome Mat trailer park, on the Florida panhandle, in Pensacola, off of Davis Highway, in Lot D-2.” He adds that they were “surrounded by bikers, wrestlers, perverts,” among others. There is some cool, bluesy guitar playing underneath the narration. And of course the word “hurricanes” stands out because of the current trouble in certain southern states. The piece’s final lines also stand out: “No drugs allowed/No loud music either.” That leads to “Double Wide Soul,” a good hard rockin’ bluesy number that features Rob Hammersmith on drums. “I clean up nice,” Don Aaron Mixon tells us at one point. That might or might not be true. It doesn’t matter, because we’re not looking for anything clean here, nor expect it. “I ran away with southern rock band/As soon as I got out of school, and I never looked back,” he nearly howls at us. Well, we music fans are benefiting from those choices now, aren’t we?

“Whatever happened to Lindberg Smith?/They’re all wondering, what became of him?” Don Aaron Mixon sings about his friend in “The Myth Of Lindberg Smith. This music will likely make you think of your own wild exploits from your youth. Maybe we give a bit more weight to those escapades now, give them a little more drama and a little more joy. It’s interesting how sometimes you learn, or remember, something about yourself through the music you listen to. This is another of the tracks to feature Rob Hammersmith on drums. Then “Rock In The Swing” has a sweeter vibe. This song is about his mother, the story starting before he was even born. “My daddy moved her down to Florida/And stuck her in a trailer/At the Welcome Mat/Down in Pensacola/She was only nineteen back in 1967 when she had me.” He offers memories of a swing outside his home, and this track features some nice touches on violin and keys. The first side then concludes with “The Welcome Mat (Pt. 1),” with Lindberg Smith again doing the spoken word narration, telling the stories of some of the people who lived at the trailer park, including a heroin addict and a wrestler. And it’s funny when he relates how teachers warned Don Aaron Mixon’s mother not let her son hang around with Lindberg Smith. This piece is also about Don Aaron being bullied, and about him being obsessed with the guitar. “That’s all he did, was play that guitar.” And then the guitar itself continues the story. It’s interesting that on the record cover, he is holding the guitar left-handed.

Side 2

The second side opens with “Coal Miner & Little Boy Blue,” which has a pretty folk sound. But that doesn’t mean Don Aaron Mixon is going to hold back vocally. No way. He still tears into those vocals, as he relates another story from his childhood. It’s a powerful performance. The song is about the conversations he’d have with his father over the CB on his father’s way home from the plant. Little Boy Blue was his CB handle, and Coal Miner was his father’s. “Coal Miner & Little Boy Blue” is followed by “Original Spark,” which also has a pretty sound, featuring some nice work on violin. “We keep fumbling around in the dark/Trying to find that original spark/We keep coming up short every time.” This song also mentions hurricanes: “It used to be so easy/I won’t blame you if you don’t blame me/We’ve been at the mercy of a hurricane.” The line about wondering what he’ll find when he starts dredging up things kept deep inside also stands out. It can be frightening; but then again, this album seems to be the result of such searching. This is one of my favorite tracks.

“Just Like Her Mama” is another track to feature some good work on violin, as well as some impressive stuff on guitar. “You’re not my sister/You’re not my mother/I’m not your daddy/Or your goddamn brother/Might as well be friends/Start acting like lovers.” “I’m sick off all the drama,” Don Aaron Mixon sings during this song, and we completely understand because we’re far enough into the album, into the stories, to be right with him, to align ourselves with him, with his experiences. The first record wraps up with “Peeping Tom & Tammy,” the lyrics delivered as spoken word by Lindberg Smith in this song. I don’t think I’d ever heard of a Peeping Tammy before. I guess in my part of the country, all the weirdos were guys. He describes a scary scenario: “There were times in the middle of the night we’d hear somebody creeping outside/The sticks and leaves under their feet were a dead giveaway/When all the windows in your trailer are open because of the Pensacola summer heat.” He describes how he had to go to school in the morning, after getting no sleep because of the activity. A compelling story, and a compelling storyteller. “We were wide awake on adrenaline and fear.” Not typical experiences for a kid, at least not where I grew up.

Side 3

Each side of this album has a different photo on the label in the center, and the picture on the third side is of their home in the trailer park. This side opens with “Pensacola, Here I Come.” “Lynyrd Skynyrd on the country radio,” Don Aaron Mixon sings at the beginning, and there is a bit of a Lynyrd Skynyrd influence heard, both in the vocal delivery and in the guitar work at moments. He makes direct reference to Lynyrd Skynyrd songs in lines like “Now if I leave here, if I go/‘Tuesday’s Gone’ blasting over my stereo,” those lines referring to two popular songs from the band’s debut LP. That’s followed by “Take You,” a mellower number featuring some good stuff on pedal steel and some sweet violin work. “I can’t stand another night away/No matter where it is.” This track features another passionate vocal performance.

Don Aaron Mixon returns to more of a blues thing with “Coldwater Creek,” a track that features Rob Hammersmith on drums and Lindberg Smith doing the spoken word sections. “After dark when there was nobody left to care/We’d meet up, park, and walk down there.” Other lines are sung by Don Aaron Mixon, who also delivers some great stuff on harmonica. Nearly halfway through, Lindberg Smith teases that he could tell us more, “But that would take away from the mystery, and the legend of Coldwater Creek.” This is another of the album’s highlights. Then the side ends with “The Welcome Mat (Pt. II), continuing the description of the trailer park, the lyrics delivered by Lindberg Smith as spoken word. “In the Welcome Mat trailer park, anything at any time could happen.” There is a kind of eerie atmosphere at the beginning of this one. This track introduces us to some characters, including those who managed the place: “The Welcome Mat manager was murdered by a hitchhiker that he had picked up in his VW van.” The man’s wife took over for a while. There is a laugh in Lindberg Smith’s voice at times, which is somewhat at odds with the atmosphere of the song and what he’s saying. Interestingly, in this song the CB handles Little Boy Blue and Coal Miner are mentioned again.

Side 4

“A Hard Way To Make An Easy Livin’” has a delicious southern rock flavor. “She gets up at the ass crack of dawn/Day in, day out/Drinks her coffee and puts her makeup on/She’s out the door to go get it done.” This is a song about day-to-day life, working, trying to get by. And we can hear the energy folks spent to do just that, particularly in the way Don Aaron Mixon delivers the song’s title line. That’s followed by “My Damn Dad.” This one comes on strong, featuring some great stuff on guitar. It was written by Don Aaron Mixon and Jonathan Ripley, and is the only song on the album to feature a co-writer. It is also the final song to feature Rob Hammersmith on drums. “He bitches over and over/About the price of gas/Then he turns right around/And drives clear across town/Just to save a few cents.” Oh man, I have to admit when I started driving in the late 1980s, I would drive to the next town for gas because it was several cents cheaper a gallon. Now the gas station I drive to is like forty cents cheaper a gallon than the closer stations. This song focuses on money, because money was the focus of his father. Understandably, right?

“Immoral Support” begins with these lines: “Mary Jane had me rollin’ joints/When I was only three/She wasn’t the only one/The black sheep in the family.” And Don Aaron Mixon sounds so determined as he sings “And when I’m gone, that family curse/Is gonna end with me.” He sure can deliver a song in a way to make us feel it throughout our bodies. There is some really good guitar work on this one. The record concludes with the third part of “The Welcome Mat,” with Lindberg Smith once again delivering the narration. In this one, he tells the story of a guy running out of the woods, diving in front of the car, getting hit by the car and knocking off the hood ornament in the process. A story involving drugs and an ice pick and an angry father. There are several other characters introduced in this song, including Mr. Norris. “When he was drunk, which was pretty much all the time, he got a little touchy-feely with some of the housewives.” And there’s more, including a ghoul and UFO hunters. This track (and thus the album) ends with the lines that concluded the intro: “No drugs allowed/No loud music either.”

Record Track List

Side 1

1. The Welcome Mat (Intro)
2. Double Wide Soul
3. The Myth Of Lindberg Smith
4. Rock In The Swing
5. The Welcome Mat (Pt. 1)

Side 2

1. Coal Miner & Little Boy Blue
2. Original Spark
3. Just Like Her Mama
4. Peeping Tom & Tammy

Side 3

1. Pensacola, Here I Come
2. Take You
3. Coldwater Creek
4. The Welcome Pat (Pt. II)

Side 4

1. A Hard Way To Make An Easy Livin’
2. My Damn Dad
3. Immoral Support
4. The Welcome Mat (Pt. III)

The Welcome Mat is scheduled to be released on October 25, 2024.