Tag: Cannonball Adderley

Best of What’s New

A selection of newly released music that caught my attention

Happy Saturday and welcome to the latest installment of my weekly new music revue. The first two picks are on albums that came out yesterday (May 5), while the two final tracks are from April 28 releases.

The Lemon Twigs/Every Day Is the Worst Day of My Life

Kicking things off are The Lemon Twigs, who I first featured in an August 2020 Best of What’s New installment. They were formed by brothers and multi-instrumentalists Brian D’Addario and Michael D’Addario in 2014 when they were still high school students on Long Island, N.Y. The brothers come from an artistic family. Their father is power pop songwriter Ronnie D’Addario, who also plays various instruments. Their mother Susan Hall pursued acting and entertainment in her younger years before becoming a neuropsychologist. At first, Brian and Michael stepped into their mothers feet with a series of theater, entertainment and TV productions before founding The Lemon Twigs. Their first release was a cassette, What We Know, issued as a limited edition in 2015, followed by their debut studio album Do Hollywood from October 2016. It’s hard to put The Lemon Twigs in one genre. Their music has included classic rock, glam rock and pop. One common denominator is a cool retro sound with elements of ’60s and ’70s. Their fourth and latest album Everything Harmony has a strong power pop vibe. Here’s Corner of My Eye, which first appeared in January as the lead single. Their Bandcamp page describes the tune, which was co-written by the two brothers, as channeling an Art Garfunkel-like vocal melody over a moody, vibraphone-tinged backing track suggesting the chamber pop of Brian Wilson. This is just gorgeous!

Olivia Jean/Raving Ghost

Olivia Jean initially became known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of all-female garage goth rock band The Black Belles who came together in Nashville, Tenn. in 2009. The catalyst was Jack White, formerly one-half of The White Stripes, who is also a producer. After White had listened to a demo of solo recordings by Jean, he introduced her to Ruby Rogers (bass), and Shelby Lynn (drums, percussion). The three ladies went into the studio to record some original songs, were encouraged by their chemistry and became The Black Belles. White produced their eponymous debut album, which was released in 2011. It turned out to be their only full-length release. After touring with moderate success, the band went on hiatus the following year. This prompted Jean to launch a solo career. Since her 2014 debut Bathtub Love Killings, she has released two additional albums under her name, including her latest, Raving Ghost. All of her three solo albums have appeared on White’s label Third Man Records. Here’s the title track of Jean’s new album.

John Andrews & The Yawns/Checks In the Mail

John Andrews & The Yawns is a music project by multi-instrumentalist and indie pop artist John Andrews. According to his AllMusic bio, The Yawns were a fictional backing band at first, as Andrews played all the instruments on his debut. He did employ accompanists for his later albums, but his low-key and lo-fi pop vision changed very little once he had a band, with his murmured vocals and subtle, melodic keyboard work still his stylistic hallmarks. 2015’s Bit by the Fang and 2017’s Bad Posture were tuneful exercises in dreamlike indie pop, while 2021’s Cookbook and 2023’s Love for the Underdog tightened the focus on his ’70s California soft rock influences. While pursuing his solo endeavors, Andrews has also played drums in psychedelic indie rock band Quilt and keyboards for folk-rock band Woods. Off his latest album with The Yawns, here’s the pleasant opener Checks In the Mail, which first appeared on February 6 as the lead single.

Alex Caswell/The Kaleidoscopic Lighthouse

My final pick for this week is neo-psychedelic songwriter and Alex Caswell. This talented multi-instrumentalist and studio artist entered my radar screen earlier this week, thanks to fellow blogger Angie Moon who featured an interview with him on her great blog The Diversity of Classic Rock. From his web bio: Alex Caswell is a 30 year old Neo-Psychedelic songwriter from Asheville, NC. Caswell was born and raised in Raleigh, but moved to Asheville in 2016. It is in Asheville that he began studying record producing and record engineering, with the goal of developing these skills to make his own records. He has studied jazz and music theory, as evidenced by the musical flexibility featured on his debut album…He cites Cannonball Adderley and Pat Martino as being influential on his lead guitar playing, which is another fluent skill of his. However, he is quick to point out the influence of classical composers on his songwriting, like Tchaikovsky and Bach, to name a few examples. He wrote all the songs on Visualize [his new debut album – CMM]. He plays all the instruments on Visualize, with the exception of drums. He sang all the songs, including each and every harmony part. He recorded, mixed, and mastered every track on Visualize. Caswell even created the artwork for his debut record. In his above interview with Angie, he noted Pink Floyd and The Beatles among his influences. Since I generally dig psychedelic rock, I didn’t waste much time checking out the entire album, and I think it’s great. I agree with Angie that headphones will give you the best listening experience. Here’s a sample: The Kaleidoscopic Lighthouse.

This post wouldn’t be complete without a Spotify playlist of the above and a few additional tunes by each of the featured artists:

Sources: Wikipedia; The Lemon Twigs Bandcamp page; AllMusic; Alex Caswell website; The Diversity of Classic Rock blog; YouTube; Spotify

Song Musings

What you always wanted to know about that tune

Happy Wednesday and welcome to another installment of Song Musings where I take a closer look at tunes I’ve only mentioned in passing or not covered at all to date. Today’s pick is Amelia by Joni Mitchell.

My intro to the Canadian singer-songwriter happened some 40 years ago with her 11th studio album Wild Things Run Fast from 1982 and I instantly loved Chinese Café / Unchained Melody. That said, I didn’t start to further explore her music until a couple of years ago.

From Mitchell’s albums I’ve heard to date, Hejira has become a favorite. Amelia is the second cut on Side one (speaking in vinyl terms). Like all other tracks on the great record, it was solely written by her. Check out that beautiful and warm sound – I totally dig it!

Amelia was inspired by Mitchell’s breakup of a short relationship with John Guerin, the drummer of jazz fusion ensemble L.A. Express, her backing band from the mid to late ’70s. According to Wikipedia, The song interweaves a story of a desert journey (the “hejira within the hejira”) with the famous aviator Amelia Earhart who mysteriously vanished during a flight over the Pacific Ocean.

Mitchell has commented on the origins of the song: “I was thinking of Amelia Earhart and addressing it from one solo pilot to another… sort of reflecting on the cost of being a woman and having something you must do.” Here’s a nice live version from 1983.

Hejira had some notable guests. Amelia featured prominent session guitarist Larry Carlton, who played on hundreds of albums by artists, such as Steely Dan, Linda Ronstadt, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones and Sammy Davis, Jr. Vibraphone was provided by English jazz musician Victor Feldman, who has played with the likes of Cannonball Adderley, Gregg Allman, Johnny Cash and Rickie Lee Jones, among many others. Carlton and Feldman also appeared on various other albums by Mitchell.

Hejira, which captures Mitchell’s experiences during a period of frequent travel in late 1975 and early 1976, was received favorably when it appeared but neither matched sales nor chart performance of its predecessors. In Canada, it peaked at no. 22 and in the U.S. it climbed to no. 13. It did best in the UK where it reached no. 11.

But, as happens frequently in music, in the years since its release the album has been considered one of the gems in Mitchell’s recording catalog. The most recent revision of Rolling Stone’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, published in September 2020, ranks Hejira at no. 133. It was also voted no. 776 in the third edition (2000) of Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums.

Following are some additional insights on Amelia by Songfacts:

Mitchell (from a 1996 interview with the Los Angeles Times): “I wrote the album while traveling cross-country by myself and there is this restless feeling throughout it… the sweet loneliness of solitary travel...“

Amelia Earhart vanished while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Mitchell alludes to this when she sings:

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms

Icarus is a figure from Greek mythology whose father, Daedalus, crafted him a set of wings made of wax. Despite his father’s warnings, Icarus flew too close to the sun and his wings melted, sending him to his death in what is now called the Icarian Sea.

Joni Mitchell sings in the first verse about:

Six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
it was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

She explained the lyric to Robert Hepburn for Mojo magazine in 1994. “Basically the false alarm was the end of a relationship. Two scorpios couldn’t let each other go. It was done, but we couldn’t let go; we belonged to each other. It was winding down and I am driving solo without a driver’s license across the country. I think of Amelia I think solo flight. I can’t remember how many hotel rooms later it was complete.”

The late David Crosby, who was in a brief relationship with Joni Mitchell in 1967 and remained a friend thereafter, covered Amelia on his sixth solo album Sky Trails, which came out in September 2017. Nice rendition!

Going back to Songfacts, here’s what Crosby reportedly told Uncut about the tune:

“I’ve always wanted to sing that song. I love that song! What a stunning piece of work she did, the two levels of it talking about Amelia Earhart and taking about her own love life at the same time, so eloquently, with such a beautiful set of words. Her version is quite ornate. I tried to sing it very simply.”

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; YouTube

The Sunday Six

Celebrating music with six random tracks at a time

Happy Sunday and I hope everybody is doing well. Earlier this week, the passing of David Crosby at age 81 once again reminded us we shouldn’t take music artists of his generation who fortunately are still with us for granted. One consolation is their great music will live on as long as this planet exists – that’s one of the incredible beauties of this art form. Let’s celebrate with another excursion into the amazing world of music with six tunes and, yes, Crosby will be one of our stops.

Bobby Timmons/Moanin’

Today, our trip starts in 1960 with groovy music by Bobby Timmons. The American jazz pianist and composer, who started performing during the first half of the ’50s, was best known as a member of Art Blakey’s band The Jazz Messengers, who he first joined in 1958. After his initial stint with this group, he moved on to Cannonball Adderley’s band in October 1959. Timmons was instrumental in creating soul jazz, a subgenre blending influences from hard bop, blues, soul, gospel and R&B. Several of his well-known compositions were written while he was playing with the two aforementioned bands. One is Moanin’, which first appeared as the title track on a 1958 album by The Jazz Messengers. I’m featuring a version Timmons subsequently recorded for an album released under his name in 1960, This Is Here Is Bobby Timmons. On his first album as the sole leader, Timmons was backed by Sam Jones (bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums).

The Rainmakers/Rainmaker

Let’s jump to the ’80s for our next stop and The Rainmakers, an American pop rock band from Kansas City. When my former bandmate and longtime music buddy from Germany first introduced me to them with their third studio album Tornado, released in 1987, I instantly loved their jangly guitar sound. Formed in 1983 as a three-piece bar band and fronted by singer-songwriter Bob Walkenhorst, The Rainmakers have put out seven studio albums to date. While their most recent release, Cover Band, dates back to 2015, The Rainmakers still appear to be around as a touring act. After two breakup periods from 1990 to 1994 and 1998 to 2011, the band has been together in their original lineup since 2011. In addition to Walkenhorst (guitar, vocals), their current members include Jeff Porter (guitar, vocals), Rich Ruth (bass, vocals) and Pat Tomek (drums). Here’s the seductive Rainmaker, off the aforementioned Tornado album.

Little Village/Take Another Look

Little Village were a supergroup founded in 1991 by Ry Cooder (guitar, vocals), John Hiatt (guitar, piano, vocals), Nick Lowe (bass, vocals) and Jim Keltner (drums). They had worked together on Hiatt’s eighth solo album Bring the Family (May 1987) and decided to form a dedicated band during a break from their own musical projects. Like most supergroups, Little Village were short-lived and only released one eponymous album in February 1992. After a supporting tour of the U.S. and Europe, they disbanded later that same year. While the album didn’t do well commercially, it received a nomination for the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or a Group. The record also peaked at no. 23 on the UK Albums Chart. Here’s Take Another Look, credited to Little Village and featuring Lowe on lead vocals.

Grateful Dead/Shakedown Street

Time to pay a visit to the ’70s with a funky tune by the Grateful Dead. While in July 2018, I jokingly declared I had evolved to become a Deadhead from a bonehead, the reality is my knowledge of the Dead remains fairly limited and mostly includes their earlier albums. As such, I had completely forgotten about Shakedown Street, the groovy title track of their 10th studio album from November 1978, produced by the great Lowell George who is best known as the original frontman of Little Feat. Composed by Jerry Garcia with lyrics by longtime collaborator Robert Hunter, the tune also appeared separately as a single, but like most of their other singles, it was dead on arrival and didn’t chart anywhere. The album performed better, reaching no. 41 and no. 42 in the U.S. and Canada, respectively. I guess the Dead were never about chart success in the first place. Regardless, I dig this funky tune, which soundwise reminds me a bit of 10cc’s Dreadlock Holiday. That tune predated Shakedown Street by about four months.

Los Lobos/Made to Break Your Heart

Our journey continues in the current century. We’re going to September 2015, which saw the release of Gates of Gold, the 15th studio album by Los Lobos. I would argue this group blending rock & roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños, is not just another band from East L.A. where they were founded in 1973 as Los Lobos del Este de Los Angeles. They are also much more than La Bamba, their great rendition of the tune first popularized by Ritchie Valens. It became a no. 1 single for Los Lobos in the U.S. and many other countries in 1987 and remains their best-known song. They remain active to this day and released their most recent album Native Sons in late July 2021. I reviewed it here at the time. For now, let’s listen to Made to Break Your Heart. Co-written by David Hidalgo and Louie Pérez, two of the four co-founding members who are still with Los Lobos, the tune is the opener of the above-mentioned Gates of Gold.

Crosby, Stills & Nash/Long Time Gone

Time to wrap up another trip and come back to celebrate the music by David Crosby. In order to do that, let’s go back to May 1969 and the eponymous debut album by Crosby, Stills & Nash. Crosby who was a brilliant musician but had a volatile character co-founded CSN in 1968 together with Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, after he had been dismissed from the Byrds. With Nash joining from The Hollies and Stills coming from the dissolved Buffalo Springfield, CSN are an early example of a supergroup. They became even “more super” when Neil Young joined them as a fourth member in August 1969, just ahead of Woodstock. Among my favorite tunes on CSN’s debut is Long Time Gone, one of the album’s two songs solely penned by Crosby. Another gem on the record, Wooden Ships, was co-written by him, Stills and Paul Kantner. Stills also joined Crosby on lead vocals for Long Time Gone.

Last but not least, here’s a Spotify playlist of the above songs. As always, I hope there’s something that tickles your fancy.

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube; Spotify

The Sunday Six

Celebrating music with six random tracks at a time

Happy Sunday and welcome to another trip into the beautiful and diverse world of music, six tracks at a time. Hop on, fasten your seatbelts and let’s go!

Miles Davis/So What

Today, I’d like to start our journey in August 1959 with some early Miles Davis. I have to admit I find this more accessible than Bitches Brew and other of his later more experimental music I’ve heard. I guess I’m not alone. According to Wikipedia, many critics regard Davis’s Kind of Blue album as his masterpiece, the greatest jazz record, and one of the best albums of all time. In 1976, it became his first album to reach Gold certification in the U.S., and as of 2019, it has reached 5X Platinum. More importantly, the album’s influence reached far beyond jazz. None other than the great Duane Allman, guitarist of The Allman Brothers Band, said his soloing on songs like In Memory of Elizabeth Reed, “comes from Miles and Coltrane, and particularly Kind of Blue.” Pink Floyd keyboardist Richard Wright noted the chord progressions on Kind of Blue influenced the structure of the introductory chords to the song Breathe on their 1973 gem The Dark Side of the Moon. Meanwhile, Davis ended up viewing Kind of Blue and his other early work differently. During a 1986 interview, he said, “I have no feel for it anymore—it’s more like warmed-over turkey.” Here’s the album’s opener So What composed by Davis. BTW, Davis (trumpet) was in formidable company on the album, including saxophone greats John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley, pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, as well as Paul Chambers (double bass) and Jimmy Cobb (drums).

Christine McVie/One in a Million

For our next stop, we’re jumping 25 years ahead to January 1984. I trust Christine McVie (born Christine Perfect) doesn’t need much of an introduction. It’s safe to assume most folks know her as a long-term member of Fleetwood Mac. She joined the group as keyboarder and vocalist in 1970 after her departure from blues band Chicken Shack and the release of her first solo album Christine Perfect. Following the Mac’s 13th studio album Mirage from June 1982, they went on a temporary hiatus, giving McVie the time to record her second eponymous solo album, Christine McVie. She was backed by Todd Sharp (guitar, backing vocals), George Hawkins (bass, backing vocals) and Steve Ferrone (drums, percussion) who 10 years later would join Tom Petty’s band The Heartbreakers. Mac’s Lindsey Buckingham (guitar) and Mick Fleetwood (drums) had guest appearances on certain tracks, as had Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood. Clearly, McVie didn’t have any challenges to secure high-caliber talent for the album. Here’s One in a Million, co-written by her and Sharp. It’s one of the tunes featuring Winwood who in addition to synthesizer also provided lead and backing vocals. Nice pop-rocker!

The Moody Blues/Watching and Waiting

This next pick has been on my list of earmarked Sunday Six songs for several months – not quite sure what took me so long! Watching and Waiting is the beautiful closer of the Moody Blues’s fifth studio album To Our Children’s Children’s Children, released in November 1969. Co-written by band members Justin Hayward (vocals, guitar, sitar) and Ray Thomas (vocals, flute, tambourine, bass flute, oboe), the tune also appeared separately as a single. It didn’t chart, unlike the album, which climbed to no. 2 in the UK, no. 11 in Canada and no. 14 in the U.S. The band’s remaining members at the time were Mike Pinder (Mellotron, piano), John Lodge (bass) and Graeme Edge (drums, percussion). During a 2014 interview Hayward said, “when we heard that song in its studio beauty, we thought, “This is it! All of those people who had been saying to us for the past 3 or 4 years, “You’ll probably just do another Nights in White Satin with it” — no! We had shivers up the spine, and that kind of stuff. But when it came out and you heard it on the radio, you kept saying, “Turn it up! Turn it up!! Oh no, it’s not going to make it.” So it didn’t happen.”

Tom Faulkner/River On the Rise

On to the ’90s and Tom Faulkner, a great American singer-songwriter who isn’t exactly a household name. My former bandmate and longtime music buddy from Germany brought him and his excellent 1997 album Lost In The Land Of Texico on my radar screen last year, and this is the second track from that album I’m featuring on The Sunday Six. To date, Faulkner has only released two albums. His most recent one, Raise the Roof, appeared in 2002. For the most part, he has made his living with commercial music for radio and TV. According to this bio on last.fm, Faulkner has created hundreds of national jingles and scores, including some of the most memorable commercial music on television and radio. Most notably, he composed and sang the wildly popular “I Want My Baby Back” for Chili’s, a jingle that has since found its way into motion pictures (Austin Powers) and over a dozen major network TV shows. He also created the multi-award winning music theme for Motel 6 and Tom Bodett, the longest running commercial campaign in the history of advertising (23 years, 5 CLIOs, and counting). Check out River On the Rise, a nice bluesy tune!

Joe Jackson Band/Take It Like a Man

It’s time to feature a couple of songs from the current century, don’t you agree? First, let’s go to March 2003 and Volume 4, the 16th studio album by versatile British music artist Joe Jackson, released as Joe Jackson Band. For this project, Jackson (piano, organ, electric piano, melodica, lead vocals) brought back together his original backing band of Gary Sanford (guitar, backing vocals), Graham Maby (bass, backing vocals) and David Houghton (drums, backing vocals). And there’s definitely some of that cool vibe from Jackson’s first three albums Look Sharp! (January 1979), I’m the Man (October 1979) and Beat Crazy (October 1980). Over his now 50-plus-year career, Jackson has touched many different genres ranging from pub rock, new wave, swing, and jazz-oriented pop to even classical music. Here’s the album’s great opener Take It Like a Man, which like all other tunes was penned by Jackson.

Candy Dulfer/Jammin’ Tonight (feat. Nile Rodgers)

And once again, it’s time to wrap up. For this final track, we’re traveling back to the present and a funky tune by Dutch jazz and pop saxophonist Candy Dulfer: Jammin’ Tonight featuring Mr. funky guitar Nile Rodgers. Dulfer, the daughter of Dutch tenor saxophonist Hans Dulfer, began playing the drums as a five-year-old before discovering the saxophone a year later. Since the age of seven, she has focused on the tenor saxophone. By the time she was 11, Dulfer made her first recordings for her father’s jazz band De Perikels (the perils). Three years later, she opened up two European concerts for Madonna with her own band Funky Stuff. Two years later, in 1989, she duetted with Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics) on the worldwide instrumental hit Lily Was Here, from the motion picture soundtrack of the same name. The following year, she put out her solo debut album Saxuality. The above tune Jammin’ Tonight is from Dulfer’s forthcoming album We Never Stop, which is scheduled for October 28. Funky!

Last but not least, here’s a Spotify playlist featuring all of the above tunes. Hope there’s something for ya!

Sources: Wikipedia; last.fm; YouTube; Spotify

Jane Lee Hooker Deliver Strong New Album Rollin’

Today, Jane Lee Hooker released their third studio album Rollin’ and it’s a fun listening experience! The New York rock band has been on my radar screen since I caught them live at a summer-in-the-park concert on the Jersey shore in August 2017. Two things struck me right away: Their raw power and that they were an all-female band, something that remains relatively rare to this day. Four and a half years later, the group delivers an album that offers their familiar hard-charging guitar-driven rock, as well as some new elements, including acoustic blues and vibes of soul.

While Jane Lee Hooker’s music is generally categorized as blues-rock, I feel their own characterization as being a blend of rock & roll, blues, punk, R&B and soul is more accurate. That’s especially the case on the new album. Jane Lee Hooker were founded in 2013 by Dana “Danger” Athens (vocals), Tina “T-Bone” Gorin (guitar), Tracy Hightop (guitar), Hail Mary Zadroga (bass), Tracy Hightop (guitar) and Melissa “Cool Whip” Houston  (drums) – in addition to the cool band name, you just gotta love these stage names! The group’s original line-up remains in place to this day, except for Houston who left in 2020 and has been replaced by ‘Lightnin’ Ron Salvo. 

Jane Lee Hooker (from left): Tina Gorin, Dana Athens, Ron Salvo, Mary Zadroga, Tracy Hightop. Photo by Rob Carter.

In 2015, Jane Lee Hooker signed with Ruf Records, a prominent independent German blues and blues-rock label, and released their debut No B! in April 2016, a collection of high-energy blues covers. This was followed by sophomore release Spiritus in November 2017, which featured originals. According to the band’s Facebook page, Rollin’ was written and recorded during the pandemic, which resulted in Jane Lee Hooker trying out new methods of songwriting and recording.

With COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing requirements in effect in NYC, the band found themselves locked out of their Brooklyn rehearsal room – the creative space where they write and rehearse with amps cranked up at maximum volume. Says singer Dana Athens, “Aside from Jericho and Lucky, which were written before 2020, the rest of the songs on Rollin’ were primarily written on acoustic instruments in my backyard while social distancing underneath the grapevines my Greek grandparents planted in 1968. We had this oasis to gather and make music and pass the time the pandemic had afforded us.”

She continues, “…we recorded this record very differently than we have done with our other albums. Beginning with focusing on drums at one studio, then tracking vocals, guitars, and other things at two other locations. This process was very different from our “plug-and-play’ attitude of yore.” Let’s check out some music!

Here’s the opener Lucky, a smoking mid-tempo blues rocker. Like all of the other six original tunes on the album, the song is credited to the entire band. “I love how “Lucky” came together because it was written in Fred’s studio on Stanton St. during practice out of the blue,” Zadroga recalled. “We took a smoke break and were saying we needed to write something new. All of it. Together!”

Drive is one of three tracks that were released as upfront singles. The soul-oriented rock ballad is my personal favorite on the album. “I was not intending to write about travel, the song is really about long-standing plans to see a friend and how you can still feel connected to someone no matter the distance between you,” Athens told Blues Matters! “Lockdown made these friends seem even further away, so I guess the song also contains a bit of escapism and fantasy – wishing that you could be together.” I love Athens’ vocals and keyboards and the beautiful guitar work.

Next up is Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, one of two covers on Rollin’. The original is a jazz tune written by Austrian jazz keyboarder and composer Joe Zawinul in 1966 for Cannonball Adderley. Athens, who had not known the instrumental until she coincidentally came across it on Spotify, added lyrics. “Dana picked this cover months before recording, but we hadn’t arranged much less played it, until the end of our session,” explained Salvo. “It came together perfectly and Dana’s lyrical stamp made it our own.” Jane Lee Hooker did a great job with their rendition. If you’re curious, you can check out the original here.

White Gold, a neat acoustic blues tune, provides a nice contrast to the otherwise electric sound of the album. “I can’t remember the name of the studio in Woodstock [Dreamland Recording Studios – CMM], but it was an old church,” Hightop said. “Matt [producer Matt Chiaravalle – CMM] and Ron [drummer Ron Salvo – CMM] had already gone to sleep and Dana, T-Bone and I snuck back into the old dark church to practice the song. Just two guitars and Dana’s massive voice filling the church.” Added Gorin: “I always knew we had a song like this in us. It doesn’t even feel like a departure for us to me. We always had roots in our music and this shows our purer side of that.”

The last track I’d like to call is Runaway Train, another blues rocker. “I guess I started writing this one in late 2019,” Athens pointed out. “I didn’t want to
use the potentially over-used train theme, but the song just came out. At this time Mary and I were getting together at my house to write and jam. The very first recording of this song is a voice memo from December 2019 of just Mary and I fleshing it out.” Salvo added, “Sounds exactly as the name implies! High speed and off the rails.” Gorin concluded, “Very JLH tune. We love dealing out energy and this one is the perfect vehicle for that.”

“Somehow, amidst the chaos of a global pandemic, we were able to write and record what I feel is our best work as a band yet,” Athens summed up the album. “Astounding that some things, like writing music with each other, will always be a beautiful and safe world, even during a worldwide health disaster like COVID19,” added Gorin. Hightop concurred, stating, “We were really able to take our time and do these amazing songs justice. This album is just next level in so many respects.” I have to agree. With a more diversified sound, Rollin’ feels like a step up from the band’s two previous albums.

Rollin’, a self-released album, was produced and mixed by Matt Chiaravalle who has worked with the likes of Joe Bonamassa, Warren Zevon and Courtney Love. It was recorded at three studios: Virtue and Vice Studios in Brooklyn, NY; Dreamland Recording Studios in Woodstock, NY; and Mercy Sound Recording Studios in New York, NY).

Here’s a Spotify link to the album:

As a bonus, here’s a live version of Drive I captured at a recent album release party in New York City. Thanks again to the band’s manager Gregg Bell who kindly invited me to the fun event and took the time to chat for a few minutes. He’s actually based in Australia, and this gig was the first time for him to see the band live – well, they certainly rocked the place!

On May 13, Jane Lee Hooker are scheduled to kick off a European tour to support the new album, including The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria. Their current schedule is here.

Sources: Wikipedia; JLH Facebook page & website; JHL press kit; Blues Matters; YouTube, Spotify