"Wiley suffers talent well. Concocting 11 sundry offerings from musings of hog cemeteries, pillaging bandits, the saving power of sin and revisionist memory, Wiley is at once cocksure and forlorn. "Bottom Dollar Baby," with its squashed dirty vocals and starched tall charisma, evokes songs off of Luke Doucet's solo album or Ben Sure's "Why Don't You Call Me?"".
Brent Hagerman, Exclaim.Ca, 2006
Since his solo debut in 2002, Prince Edward Island singer-songwriter Nathan Wiley has gained critical acclaim in Canada. His original genre-blending infusion of rock, folk, blues and jazz have earned comparisons to Tom Waits and Bob Dylan. Wiley has been credited for his "impressive musical scope and lyrical maturity" (Larry LeBlanc, Billboard, 2002) and for coming across as being an 'old soul': :"a musician whose talent in terms of music and songwriting far belies his years" (Jason MacNeil, AllMusic.com).
'Bottom Dollar Baby' is first track off his debut album Bottom Dollar (2002), and a perfect example of Wiley's ability to create "well-crafted and melodic material delivered with an easy on the ear vocal style" (Kerry Doole, NewCanadianMusic, 2015). Its easy to see why Wiley, who was 25 when he debuted, has been widely praised for the maturity of his lyrical content: the track is basically about a vaguely grotesque, down-and-out man who is willing to do anything for money (i.e. gambling). Wiley's lyrics are precise and poetic, effortlessly crafting a lyrical persona who has several more decades of life experience than himself: 'I'm your bottom dollar baby/ Strong as a ship/ I smell like a backlot/ I crack like a whip'. Wiley's persona also compares himself to a 'woody in the can', 'the bottle of a drunken man' and 'shovel pieces of a broken bet'.
Wiley's confident, cocksure vocal delivery (with that arresting husky baritone) creates an interesting contrast to his lyrical persona's psychological state, which seems to be stoically denying his troubles and problems by focusing on his single-minded pursuit of money: 'Highway seven forty nineAnd I don't want to see no cryin'Take a ride to the edge of townI don't want no money down
Silver mickey on the floorAnd I don't want to see no cryin'I don't want to see nothing anymore.'
Wiley's tracks from his subsequent albums - like 'High Low' and 'North American Dream' - are likeable enough, but I'm still more enamoured by 'Bottom Dollar Baby's unflinchingly stark and gritty lyricism.
