Josh Brooks is getting there with 'Lessons Learned'
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Brooks performs on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Music Box in Craftsbury; for information, go online to www.themusicboxvt.org. |
Toolbox
By ART EDELSTEIN arts Correspondent - Published: June 5, 2009
Addison County singer-songwriter Josh Brooks recently released his fourth album, "Lessons Learned." This CD highlights a very good songwriter, and singer whose work has matured since his earlier recordings and offers promise as a vehicle for regional and perhaps national attention.
"Lessons Learned" is a modest production encased in a slim-line CD holder, containing 11 songs and well over an hour's worth of music. The album features Brooks on vocals, a variety of acoustic and electric guitars and Kent Blackmer on drums.
In concept and content this is an album, close to, but not yet ready for national distribution. Brooks has a really good husky, sometimes smoky, country/rock voice. If he affected a bit of Nashville twang he certainly could pass for any number of country singers. His voice is tuneful and emotive. One never has the sense that Brooks is sleepwalking through these songs.
He's also a better than average rhythm guitarist and by layering guitar tracks, he and Blackmer sound like a full-fledged band. However, when given the chance to play his acoustic guitar he achieves his most successful tracks. "Evangeline" and "Sorry for It All" are examples.
Brooks also excels as a songwriter. He paints a countryside inhabited by bars and bar bands, loves gone sour, relationship mistakes and lots of regret. In this case, his songs are not different from many other love them and lose them songwriters. However, Brooks writes with a sincerity and story line that make one wonder just how many ruined relationships he might have had in a 30-plus year life.
"Sorry for It All," my favorite track, exemplifies his lyric content. He writes:
Looking back I guess I missed the signs? I was only worried 'bout getting mine. There was a star that I was chasing, love be damned/ the little notes you left me in my lunch every day/ I crumpled 'em up and threw 'em away/ Just a fool's heart in the body of a busy man/ What I'd give to have that chance again.
Brooks can be downright morbid as in track 4 "Haunting Me" a song about an ended love leading to suicide. He writes:
Pull into a motel lot/ In some Go-forsaken town/ Couple shots of whiskey/ And I pull the hammer down/ Now my finger's on the trigger/ Lord, let my aim be true/ I close my eyes and all I see is you …
Lisa Sammet of The Music Box in Craftsbury where Brooks and Blackmer perform on Saturday, June 6, says:
Josh Brooks was one of the first performers to ever grace the stage at The Music Box. When I got his first recording I listened to it so often I knew all the words. Josh continues to be one of Vermont's finest songwriters and he has a great, full, rich voice to sing them. His songs are accompanied by his solid acoustic country-honk style of guitar with his side of harmonica playing, keeping his sound authentic. I have called him a storyteller and that he is. His songs get into the hearts of the people he writes about. He also has great melodies that pull the words together. His style is folk rock, roots music and Americana.
The problem with 'Lesson Learned' is a common one and the bane of the performer/producer — one of excess and lack of focus. Some of Brooks' songs are suitable for a drummer but several of the tracks, especially the opening 'El Dorado,' are far too long with an excessive drum-led coda. Someone should have told Blackmer to tone it down. Also, I found several songs too long. Repetition doesn't necessarily lead to a better performance.
The album also suffers from the lack of a bass player. On the louder songs a bass track would have filled in the aural space that this CD lacks.
Track 10, the aforementioned 'Sorry for It All' is an acoustic guitar number with a strong lyric, memorable melody and plaintive guitar rendering. It should have ended the album, but Brooks ends with the rocker 'Half the Man I Used to Be.' That song should have been placed earlier in the track order.
Josh Brooks is close to breaking out of the Vermont singer-songwriter mold. Lessons Learned could be the vehicle, but first Brooks needs to edit the tracks and repackage the album if he wants to achieve the recognition that is at his fingertips.
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