Tag: Singer-Songwriter

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Dan Montgomery’s Cast-Iron Rock

Dan Montgomery's Cast-Iron Songs and Torch Ballads

There’s something about the “singer/songwriter” tag that carries lingering associations with acoustic guitars. Though most singer/songwriters employ full bands on their albums, their shows are more often solo affairs and the acoustic guitar strum ultimately propels the songs. For many past Dan Montgomery albums (he’s released seven), that might have been said.

But for his 2023 album, he wanted to get back to his roots in the South  —  South Jersey, that is. Those roots don’t call for mandolins and fiddles, but rather axes that flat-out rock. And therein lies the beauty of his new album, Cast-Iron Songs and Torch Ballads (Fantastic Yes Records), on which the Dan Montgomery 2+3 (with Robert Mache on guitars, keys, and vocals, Candace Mache on vocals, James Cunningham on drums, and Tom Arndt on bass and vocals) rock righteously to their bandleader’s stories.

Embracing his inner hard rocker takes Montgomery back to playing party gigs in his early teens, when, he says in a release accompanying the album, “I was the youngest in the band. The first songs I played on stage were by Grand Funk, Bad Company, and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. It was wild.”

If those classic references seem spurious, rest assured that Montgomery really knows his way around a riff. If there’s a wellspring from which perfect three chord, stop-and-start riffs flow, he has surely tapped into it. The opening of the second track here, “If I Said It,” is a prime example, as is album closer “Rock Hard,” but there are many such moments. And there are many that pair a long-sustaining electric guitar with another that chugs away inexorably, like the wheels of fate driving the lives in each song to their destiny.

Cause after he flipped out – She started to slip out
And once he shipped out – She just split town – She told me
I gotta get to Beaumont tonight – Can you help me friend
If I can get to Beaumont I can set things right
– And I’ll never have to ask again

So Montgomery sings in “Beaumont,” and that semi-desperate protagonist is a familiar one in the songwriter’s career-long chronicle of hardship. And yet, the author staying true to the particulars of each story, there’s a glimmer of hope in “Beaumont” as well. It’s a world unto itself, promising escape. But as for hope, this album holds more than a glimmer, it positively glitters. Depending on which song you choose, that could be Gary Glitter or actual, shiny glitter, as in the song by that name:

Well it seemed so sweet so sinful – Looked so much better in the dark
Now it seems so simple – And you wear it like a scar
You’re never gonna get all that Glitter off you
You’re never gonna get all that Glitter off you – Now you gotta go home

True, that’s a song more in the “torch ballads” segment of the program, but with this album, a chugging riff is not far off, as in the track immediately before “Glitter,” which begins with an uncanny homage to that other Glitter – Gary, that is. Anyone familiar with his “Rock ‘n’ Roll (Part 2),” a classic 1972 instrumental single with one of the most distinctive sounds of its era, will crack a smile when “Sort It All Out” begins, though it soon enough becomes its own thing entirely.

And speaking of distinctive sounds, the album’s also graced with one of Memphis’ greatest guitar alchemists, Robert Mache, who, as usual, has co-produced these tracks with Montgomery in “The Shack in the Back” studio. His unerring sense of guitar tone is a crucial ingredient to all those riffs, solos, swipes, and jabs, and the deft keyboard textures (also supplied by Montgomery and guest player Rick Steff) flesh out the powerful arrangements. Ace sax man Jim Spake also makes an appearance.

All this, and the spot-on background vocals from Candace Mache and others that give the music an epic sweep, would be for naught if these weren’t, as advertised, cast-iron songs. Which I take to mean songs that have been whittled and crafted to the point of holding up over time. Songs for a lifetime, or a few.

And the real cast-iron masterpiece of the album, it turns out, isn’t a rocker at all. “Baby Your Luck’s Running Bad” is a perfect distillation of the kind of metropolitan soul that ruled the airwaves a half century ago (close to New Jersey by way of Philadelphia), sung with dry restraint by Montgomery, who could have given Johnny Rivers a run for his money back in the day:

If you wanna see God laugh
Just tell him your plans
He’s a spiteful so and so
What a spiteful so and so

Below, a solo performance of the same song, but don’t sleep on the album version.

The Dan Montgomery 2+3 plays B-Side Memphis on Sunday, July 30, 8 p.m.

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Aaron James’ Debut Ponders the Love We Make

Album art by Shakeya Merriweather

The Unapologetic collective champions virtues that aren’t often associated with hip hop: vulnerability, fragility, and even self-doubt. Such qualities crop up in even their hardest jams, but they’re front and center, distilled into their essence, on the new long-playing debut from the group’s go-to guitarist, Aaron James.

At first, Nobody Really Makes Love Anymore hits the ears as a complete departure from Unapologetic’s typical fare. The first of three spoken vignettes gives way to snippets of backwards synth and falsetto, reminiscent of Magical Mystery Tour, until gentle guitar strums set the pace for James’ quiet vocals.

Dear love, above / Your moon don’t align with my rising sun / And I heard that’s not good for relations / You said, you’d send / A strand of your hair in a letter you penned / But instead, you sent just the pages.

With a hushed delivery reminiscent of Elliott Smith or Sufjan Stevens, these words and tones take the listener to a very interior place, where one goes to recall half-forgotten dreams. But while James’ voice has always delivered vulnerability with a confident strength, going back to his first single six years ago, the production here savors the space between his breaths as much as the music itself. Indeed, this album may be the most painterly music from the collective since the sparest moments from Cameron Bethany’s work. Though James can pick cascading guitar ostinatos like a folk pro, he sometimes chooses a sparser approach here, as acoustic guitar notes hang in the air and breathe.

Aaron James (Credit: Gabrielle-Duffie)

The 13-track album (including three conversational interludes) was recorded with a team of three producers and multi-instrumentalists, featuring James himself, co-producer Kid Maestro (Miss Lauryn Hill), and keyboard/piano/harmony vocalist Eillo. Together, they create a soundscape rich in acoustic beauty, yet undergirded with a deft sense of beats, synth flourishes, and even vocoder.

Kid Maestro, of course, is familiar to Unapologetic fans from his harder-hitting work with rappers, but he pivots here to more delicate percussion and a subtle sense of atmospherics. And Eillo is a secret weapon worth celebrating in his own right, bringing accomplished pianistic and vocal flourishes that decorate these songs like ear candy.

But if this album sports some of the most accomplished production in the Unapologetic catalog (and that’s saying something), there’s a rawness at the heart of it. That’s partly due to its emergence from the pandemic. The album is yet another Covid baby, produced in ad hoc studio settings, including a shed, as the trio soldiered through the height of quarantine while practicing responsible social distancing. As James notes in a statement, “It was a great exercise in capturing the DIY vibe of the time and just not taking things too seriously. I also hope the rawness translates and helps make this dialogue on love feel more honest as opposed to something that was way over produced.”

And truly, it’s the raw honesty that shines through here, as when James confesses in “The Breaker” that he wants to flip the script, and “treat you cold and jaded, with no explanation.” Ouch. It may be that nobody is making love, but James and company manifest it with a heartfelt question mark.

Aaron James will celebrate the album’s release tonight, Friday, November 11, 7:30 p.m., in a private house show at 579 N. McLean Boulevard. Free, but reservations are encouraged due to limited space.

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Rob Jungklas Wanders Beulah Land with Rebel Souls

An ill-informed music fan might mistake Rebel Souls, the latest album from Rob Jungklas, as a slice of Americana. And with titles like “Southern Cross the Dog,” “Beulah Land,” and “Down to the River,” who could blame them? Other details — the cover art by Brooke Barnett, suggesting a black-and-red rose wood print, or the presence of the Sacred Harp Singers of Cork, Ireland, on two tracks — only seem to confirm its Americana provenance.

But examine both the songs and the cover image a bit more closely, and something altogether more intriguing appears.

On closer inspection, that darkly sensuous rose is actually a kind of landscape, a hallway or tunnel ending in some sort of mandala, framed by broken chains. And the lead track’s title, “Ruination,” offers another hint. Open the book of lyrics that accompanies the CD, and you’ll see the full title is “The Body’s Ruination is the Soul’s Release.” The music isn’t the typical folk gospel that might accompany that line, but the modern drone of a synthesizer, leading a minor key dirge as Jungklas sings with an eerie desperation.

In “Beulah Land,” Jungklas “sees Death walking like a man” — a familiar figure in the universe of Rebel Souls. If the phrase carries echoes of ageless blue songs, that’s appropriate. The blues as an idea permeates the album, though the music itself is barely hinted at. Muddy Waters and Furry Lewis appear in different songs, and moreover, the specters of death and loss hover over nearly every word. “Love is the religion,” he sings in “Ruination,” “but Death is the deity.”

Make no mistake, love is present in this world, as crafted by Jungklas in deft literary touches. It’s just that it’s hard-won, coming only after one faces the costs of survival in a brutal land. “I paid in blood for all I have,” Jungklas sings. By the album’s end, one gets a sense of what his rewards might be, as the music turns to major-key hopefulness, albeit cautiously, in “Down to the River.”

The moon rose over Midtown
With a sweet narcotic pull
Shining down on the bleeding and the beautiful
Shining down on all the noble savages
And all the ragged saints
Those of us who are redeemed
And those of us who ain’t

The album’s atmosphere of creeping twilight owes much to the subtle arrangements, blending expertly crafted synthesizer textures with the sound of an organic band. Indeed, some tracks were even recorded live at The Green Room at Crosstown Arts by the inimitable Kevin Houston, who co-produced the album with Jungklas. Other tracks and overdubs were then recorded and mixed by Houston at Nesbit Recording Services. And the contributing musicians — including strings by Jonathan Kirkscey, Jana Meisner, and Krista Lynne Wroten, bass by Sam Shoup, guitar by Dave Smith, and percussion by Shawn Zorn — lend a human warmth to the dark proceedings.

Some music has the distinct ability to immerse you in a landscape, be it a mansion on a hill or the rains down in Africa. The latest from Jungklas has that quality, centered on Memphis, with a vision of the American South laced with dread and foreboding, and perhaps a shred of hope.