JERRY JOSEPH : THE BEAUTIFUL MADNESS

JERRY JOSEPH : THE BEAUTIFUL MADNESS

Days Of Heaven
Bone Towers
Full Body Echo
San Acacia
(I'm In Love With) Hyrum Black
Good
Sugar Smacks
Dead Confederate
Black Star Line
Eureka

Label : Cosmo Sex School Records

Release Date : August 21, 2020

Length : 58:27

Review (Bluestown Music) : Singer-songwriter Jerry Joseph uit San Diego heeft een bewogen leven achter de rug waarin huiselijk geweld een grote rol speelde. Als tiener was Jerry dermate onhandelbaar dat hij gedeporteerd werd naar een strenge kostschool in Nieuw-Zeeland. Dat hielp echter ook niet echt want Jerry werd al snel weer terug gedeporteerd. In een latere fase in zijn leven kwam er ook nog een heroine verslaving bij. Gelukkig kwam Jerry in aanraking met de muziek en richtte hij in de 80's de reggae-rockband Arcata Little Women op om daarna solo te gaan met bands als the Jackmormons, the Stockholm Syndrome en the Denmark Veseys. Gezien zijn verleden is het niet zo gek dat Jerry op zijn nieuwe album verbitterd, boos en vooral zeer realistisch klinkt in zijn bespiegelingen van de hedendaagse samenleving. Hij wordt op het album begeleid door de band The Stiff Boys, die niemand anders zijn dan Drive-By Truckers. En dan hebben we het over Patterson Hood (gitaar, mandoline, zang, productie), Mike Patton (bas), Jay Gonzalez (piano, orgel, synthesizer), Brad Morgan (drums), Mike Cooley (banjo, gitaar), Schaefer Llano (backing vocals), Little Sue Weaver (backing vocals), Kyleen King (viola) en de Aretha Garland Singers. Het album opent met de stuwende akoestische ballad Days Of Heaven, die door the Drive-By Truckers omgeturnd wordt tot een dwingend en swingend Americana nummer. Door de "boze" zang valt dit nummer zeer zeker aan te raden aan fans van Graham Parker. Vervolgens is Bone Towers een breekbare ballad met doorleefde zang van Jerry. Een nummer over een relatie die flink aan het aftakelen is. Het Graham Parker geluid duikt weer op in het sprankelende Full Body Echo. San Acacia is een dreunend donker nummer met gebroken, boze zang van Jerry, ondersteund door engelachtige achtergrondzang. Good klinkt behoorlijk bluesy en heeft een Crazy Horse-achtig rauw gitaargeluid. In Sugar Smacks is Jerry boos op o.a. het Witte Huis, digitale porno, drugs en zijn eigen verleden en komt hij tot de conclusie dat het een "scary fucking world" is waarin we leven. Jason Isbell treedt met zijn slidegitaar aan in Dead Confederate. Een nummer verteld uit het oogpunt van een standbeeld, dat op het punt staat om omvergetrokken te worden. Het nummer handelt over vooroordelen en rassenhaat. Zeer actueel dus! Black Star Line werd geschreven op de avond dat David Bowie overleed en is een prachtig eerbetoon, dat recht uit Jerry's hart komt met een zeer sfeervolle viool bijdrage van Kyleen King. Het album eindigt met de ballad Eureka, die minder grimmig en zelfs voorzichtig sprankelt met lichte "Five Years" (Bowie) trekjes. Dit album van Jerry Joseph is één van de betere singer-songwriters albums van de laatste tijd vol met realistische bittere teksten.

Review (Louder Than War) : You've probably never heard of veteran rocker Jerry Joseph, but across the Atlantic he's venerated by Drive-By Truckers' Patterson Hood and his former band mate Jason Isbell as one of best songwriters and live perfomers they've ever seen.so who are we to disagree with such good judges? In fairness to the Drive-By Truckers they have put their money where their mouths are by backing Joseph as the Stiff Boys on what is his first European release. Whilst his bandmates work their magic on Joseph's strong songs Patterson Hood doubles up as producer at Matt Paton's Dial Back Studio in Mississippi. And they also pulled off a coup as Isbell teams up with his former compadres for the first time since he left the band in 2007 contributing slide guitar to timely ballad Dead Confederate. This is Joseph's state of the union address, and Days of Heaven has a touch of the Mellencamp about it as he recalls how he wrote it on his brother's porch with a 45 by his side in case the local drug dealers came a calling. Bone Towers is a mid-tempo brutally honest reflection on a broken relationship before this record lifts off with the epic, visceral Sugar Smacks. Imagine a James Ellroy or Don Winslow novel set to music, and you get near how powerful this song is as Joseph lets rip at our fucked up world, which he has seen for himself as he as toured some of the world's trouble spot with his charity foundation NOMAD giving guitars away to budding musicians in some of the worst hellholes. It's not all talk with Jerry. The cleverest song is Dead Confederate as Joseph's mournful Southern blues, lifted by Isbell's sympathetic slide guitar, looks at the ongoing battle over racist monuments from the unexpected perspective of the statue. It sounds a bit hokey, but it is actually a brilliant offbeat reflection on why monuments to men who thought 'buying and selling humans was good work if you could get it' need to be pulled down. The decades long 'rebel pride' represented by these bits of metal dissipates as the statue is hauled off to the scrap yard. Joseph offers a heartfelt tribute to the Thin White Duke with a song he wrote when he first saw him as a 13 year old fan saying that Bowie had acted as a satellite to a different world for a generation of musicians. You can see why Woody Harrelson is such a big fan as this well crafted and angry record is going to break Jerry Joseph over here, so get down early to next year's Drive-By Trucker shows in the UK where he is the support.

Review (God Is In The TV) : The name of Jerry Joseph may not be immediately familiar to many but The Beautiful Madness - his first ever European release - should change all of that. In short, it is magnificent; a powerful, uncomfortable indictment upon these troubled times in which we now live, delivered to us in ten blistering songs performed by Joseph himself backed up by the Stiff Boys, aka Alabama's finest, Drive-By Truckers. Recorded at Drive-By Truckers' bassist Matt Patton's studio, Dial Back Sound, in Water Valley, Mississippi and produced by fellow Drive-By Truckers' band member Patterson Hood, The Beautiful Madness shares many of those central DBT characteristics of stark honesty and furious rage, yet it steadfastly remains Jerry Joseph's record. The strength of his songwriting, his passionate singing, his guitar work - both National Steel and acoustic - his deep moral sense and huge personality all burn brightly right throughout the album. Speaking recently in an interview with Americana Highways magazine, Jerry Joseph described the creative process for The Beautiful Madness: "Those guys in the Truckers, they would sit in front of me (in the studio in Mississippi) almost like it was a classroom, and they'd say "tell us the story." So I'd tell the story of the song, and whatever it was then we'd listen to the demo, and then go in and track." And the sheer power of these stories coupled to the musicians' shared values and undoubted sense of unity are there for all to hear. 'Sugar Smacks' - featured here as one of our Tracks of the Week a few weeks back - remains a coruscating, difficult listen highlighting as it does not only Jerry Joseph's own shortcomings but also those of the world at large. Hearing 'Dead Confederate' is a similarly disconcerting experience. Commenting upon slavery and the racist heritage left by the Confederacy it parallels power and pain. The song also continues the Drive-By Truckers association as it features their former alumnus Jason Isbell recording with the band for the first time in years. And what is possibly the album's stand-out track (although ' Good' and 'Bone Towers' both run it a mighty close second; hell, all of the songs do), 'Black Star Line' has Jerry Joseph reflecting upon the death of David Bowie and all that The Thin White Duke had meant to him as an artist. The deep poignancy of the song's meaning is matched by an incredible searing guitar solo from Joseph and an exceptional vocal delivery where he sounds uncannily like an American Graham Parker. It may only be August but The Beautiful Madness is already a very strong candidate for Album of the Year.