Stoney Garden of Earthly Delights
by Happy Beckett
There is hidden wisdom in this album, delivered with rocking good, bad boy charm and more disingenuous heart than a murder of Black Crowes. J.C. Martin's songs have Stones grit, Randy Newman wit, with a voice from the gravel pit.
Who the hell are these guys? There are two soul/gospel soloists on this album split to either ear, that carry the song to a place no background singer can find on a map. Cory Orosco is dead right on bass, honky tonk on upright, gospel on Sunday and boosey sex all week long from the Hammond B–3, front porch honest on the mandolin, dobro, tambourine and God only knows what other percussion. Tina Stefans on the shake and bake drums, can fake and weave from bass line to bass line like Meadow Lark Lemon, hit nothing but net, and keep singing. And oh that guit box, Ernie Joseph Orosco's mistress, is a trip to rock 'n roll heaven by way of Memphis, with a stop over in New Orleans and all points south. Martin's voice is Louisiana swamp voodoo with Mick sass and the Cajon spice of a Mac Rebennack. Mark Parson on violin and Bill Flores on pedal steel, as co-conspirators, "contribute" with more heart than hired guns generally bring to the party. This Stoney garden of earthly delights delivers disorderly insight with focused tongues of fire in the face of the way things are.
One Listen to Black Angel Band will put you in exile on various main streets around the Golden State. Alright, they sound like the Rolling Stones from that best of double album years back, when the Stones sounded like Dr. John, who sifted through a murky bucket load of blues from Professor Longhair. This band has lived the songs, and didn't have to lift their experience from 1950s southern race records. J.C. doesn't have a fake southern accent, and the band won't need walkers for 40 years to come. I haven't heard their live sound, but the two albums available to me are more live than most concert records and this band will be charging onstage long after the Stones have retired to the Betty Ford Center to gather moss.
Review of the Songs on O' California and upcoming O'Santa Barbara can be read on myspace at BillySheppard23
