Navan Surprises at the Willy Street Fair 9/20/2009

I planned my trip to the Willy Street Fair around the scheduled performances of Josh Harty and Blake Thomas.  I’d never seen either of them live and three birds (Harty, Thomas, and the Fair) with one stone was too good an opportunity to pass up.  Unfortunately, I was late for the Josh Harty Band performance at the WORT Underground Stage and only caught the final few songs.  Nonetheless, I was impressed with the little bit I heard.  Harty has a great voice that blends perfectly with Thomas’ rich backing and lead vocals.  He cued the band for each song’s changes and pulled off a fine and thoughtful guitar solo supported solidly by Thomas on bass and Chris Wagoner and Mary Gaines of the Stellanovas on cello, lap steel, fiddle, and Gaines’ lovely harmony vocals.   I was disappointed I didn’t have a chance to see more and looked forward to the later show.

BLAKE THOMAS – 40 Minutes

(2006 Self-Release)

Thankfully, 40 Minutes runs to almost fifty, and not one minute is wasted. The title of Blake Thomas’s second release comes from its penultimate track, a sweetly strummed waltz that like every effort here is a near-flawless balance of excellent musicianship, his gorgeous, occasionally shiver-inducing voice and smart songwriting. In fact, the first two qualities are so often more than enough that the third frequently gets overlooked. He’s in fullNashville Skyline mode here, tossing off lines like “My head is a house I’d be ashamed to take you home to” (“Head is a House”) and “She staggers up stairwells in sun-soaked clothes” (slow burner “Kaitlyn”) like afterthoughts. There’s a perceptible quiver in his voice as he sings, “When I saw a shooting star / No idea what to wish for at all” (from “Shooting Star”); you don’t know if it’s because he has everything or nothing.

Chris Boeger on upright bass and Scott Beardsley on drums have the sort of telepathy inherent to a seasoned rhythm section and they are the rock-solid anchor of the disc. Their proficiency gives the rest of the band room to stretch. “I Have Captained My Heart” finally gives Shauncey Ali, excellent throughout, a chance to really fiddle, you know, like there’s one made of gold on the line, though his very worthy competition in this case is Adam Davis’s heartbreaking pedal-steel guitar. A steady rollin’ steam engine of a song, it could be a lost cut from Josh Ritter’s recent Animal Years. The track “Satisfied” finds Thomas echoing Steve Winwood’s “While You See a Chance” in both melody and lyrics. “If it’s all around you, take it,” he counsels over the shimmery violin/pedal-steel combo.

Thomas plays it straight for most of the disc, but track thirteen, “Smoke Break,” finds him expanding a bit. Abackmasked mumble flows into a melodica-and-pedal-steel haze as Thomas sing-songs a rhyme about wet matches and the perfect woman. A chorusless exercise, the end of each line is protracted in hypnotic fashion, which initially disguises a killer punchline: “Her body was an hourglass,” he observes before adding, “She was perfect to look at / But one half was empty all the same.” Ouch. Just over two minutes long, it has the quirky charm that made “Matt Ladish is on Fire,” his contribution to the 14 Songs in 28 Days compilation, so ridiculously entertaining.

Thomas is moving to Austin, breaking local music-lover and MAMA voters’ hearts, but he might be wise to take these songs on a tour of Ireland sometime. The similarly folk-leaning Ritter’s massive popularity there eventually bled over to the States. Like many Europeans, the Irish seem to appreciate our Americana more than we do.

BLAKE THOMAS & THE DOWNTOWN BROWN – Real Like Theater

(2005   Self-Release)

If instead of growing up Irish on a diet of Van Morrison, David Gray had been raised somewhere in rural America listening to Johnny Cash and the Band, he probably would have ended up sounding a lot like Blake Thomas.  While not obvious at first, it only takes a little imagination to hear the voice that confesses “ ‘Cause your presence is a present that I’m unwrapping every second,” (from “Morsels”) instead pleading “If you want it, come and get it, crying out loud,” or any other line from Gray’s monster hit “Babylon.”  In fact, “Tip of Your Tongue” even features the same jittery percussion that begins that song.  Once you get that idea in your head, it’s impossible not to hear it in other tracks like the gentle piano-based “On Grand Street” or the strings and jangly guitar composition  “Mornings.”  Though I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, perhaps the only things Thomas needs to achieve Gray-like world (albeit short-lived) dominance is signing to Dave Matthews’ label and securing an opening spot on his tour.  

Of course, there’s a lot more going on here than just some sort of subliminal channeling (heck, in my constant struggle to find valid comparisons, I may just be hearing things). While Thomas’ full, rich voice (which earned him a deserved 2005 MAMA for Best Male Vocalist) could carry any song on its own, it’s his backing band, the Downtown Brown, that really makes this disc exceptional.  Even in this group of mega-talented musicians, multi-instrumentalist (violin, viola, mandolin) Shauncey Ali stands out.  His beautifully understated pizzicato playing on “Again & Again” and “Mornings” elevates those songs to another level.  Theater also features a strong cast of supporting players.  Among the notable guests are the Red Chemist horns: Steve Resnick (trombone), Jack Whitney (sax) and Kyle Alban (trumpet), all of whom give “Boston” its saucy jazz strut.  That song also features Mary Gaines of the Moon Gypsies contributing lovely “a-whoo” backing vocals, in addition to tinkling piano from Downtown Brown member TJ Pedriana.  Another notable performance is turned in by pedal-steel player Adam Davis ( “Nuthin’ New” would be just another song sung blue without him) and “I Wanna Leave Again” gets a boost from his country-swing playing, not to mention another stunning performance from both Ali and Pedriana.  Of course, without the great rhythm section of Jeff Bail on bass and Justin Kunesh on drums, none of it would work. 

But the real reason these songs work so well isn’t all the decoration.  If you stripped away everything else and just left Thomas’s remarkable voice and guitar, you’d have a dozen strong songs that hold up well on their own.  Once you recognize that, it is even easier to appreciate their beauty.  And once you’ve seen Thomas, his fiery red hair and beard should erase those David Gray mental images.