Songwriting Reviews

Blues Blast Magazine Song of the Year Nominees

Since 2008, Blues Blast has invited all blues musicians to send in their music to be nominated for an award – send in thirty copies of your CD and their nominating panel will decide if it gets to be a finalist. This is a pretty democratic way of doing things. I figured I could learn something by reviewing the 2014 nominees for Song of the Year.

There are seven songs listed for the 2014 awards, to be announced on October 23^rd in Champaign, Illinois. In my opinion, four of the seven have merit.

Another Murder in New Orleans (Carl Gustafson and Donald Markowitz), performed by Bobby Rush and Dr. John, was recorded to support the New Orleans Crimestoppers organization.  The verses of the song set the scene and describe the anguish of a mother whose son is shot on the street. The chorus and bridge give the singer the opportunity to communicate his feelings about the situation and hope for the future. I couldn’t make out all of the words in the bridge (sung by Dr. John) but I think he pleads for witnesses to come forward (“those in the street where they died”). So there is a possible solution other than wringing our hands and lamenting.

Donald Markowitz is a hit writer (“I’ve had the Time Of My Life”, from “Dirty Dancing”) and as one might expect from a pro, the rhyme scheme is solid, verse and chorus contrast; scansion is consistent throughout, the song has a beginning, middle and ending that progress in a natural way. Also, there is a distinct New Orleans feel to the song itself, which is amplified by Rush and Dr. John in the vocal and production.

Lurrie Bell’s “Blues in my Soul” (which won the IBF Song Award earlier this year) doesn’t say much, but I did find it satisfying. It pretty much just repeats the same sentiment in each verse. He establishes at the beginning that “I like what I’m doing today, I feel the blues all the way down in my soul” and the second and third verses state that he’ll always feel that way.  On paper, the words are boring, in the same way that “The Thrill Is Gone” has lyrics that simply repeat the same sentiment throughout the song and don’t provide perspective or development. Bell’s song succeeds because, like “Thrill is Gone”, there is a ton of room to sing and emote and Bell suspends time as you listen to the performance.

“Going To See Miss Gerri One More Time” by Billy Branch has a lot going for it. It is the story of a woman who migrated to Chicago in the 1920s and opened The Palm Tavern, a night club that became a hangout for the top jazz and blues musicians of the day. We don’t really get to understand (in the choruses) why Branch is going to see her, or what might happen when he does, but I didn’t care because the verses tell a true story that is interesting and well written. I think he did a fantastic job coming up with lines and rhymes that, for the most part, are natural language and don’t sound forced. One verse lists a dozen-plus big stars that frequented the Palm Tavern – it almost gets a little too Tin Pan Alley here but stops short of being trite.

“Meet Me in Chicago” is my favorite of the seven. If the City of Chicago hasn’t made this their official song yet, they should! Buddy Guy takes the song written by his producer, Tom Hambridge, and Richard Fleming and tells us all the reasons we should meet him in Chicago. As in Billy Branch’s song, we get to hear a list of iconic things we all recognize as Buddy sings about how he’ll show us around, walk downtown with a sweet home Chicago girl, visit Comiskey Park, look for Al Capone, and hear Buddy Guy sing the blues. This is a songwriting review but I must mention that the production is excellent and the vocals rock!

“Fare Thee Well” by Nick Moss is amateurish in comparison to the other nominees. Who actually says “Fare thee well” these days unless they are doing Shakespeare in the Park?  The song tells us how Nick misses his baby, his one and only, who held his heart in her hand. Now there’s a graphic image! We don’t really find out why she left, the lyrics seem to suggest it was both of their faults, and he is hoping they’ll get back together again – he sings, “You’ll come along, and ease my worried mind”. There are a lot of tired sentences like that scattered throughout the song. The one interesting lyric comes right after this – he tells her “I’ll just call you my friend as long as you call me on the other line.” This raises some interesting possibilities – is this a backdoor romance?  But it never gets any deeper into this topic. 

Tom Hambridge makes it onto the list of nominees a second time with a song he wrote with Robert Randolph for James Cotton - "He Was There".  It is a tribute song to Cotton, providing a brief history of his journey from being a truck driver to playing at Carnegie Hall. The refrain says, “It’s all true, I ain’t blowing hot air, You can’t make this stuff up, James Cotton was there!”  Well, maybe they should have made some stuff up, because they manage to make Cotton’s story sound like every other musician who quit their job to play the blues.  No human interest, no mention of the musicians he played with, or why his story is unique in any way. James Cotton is a giant of the blues harp, a man who put his total energy into every note he played! All they come up with is “There were good times, man oh man, Fine looking womens all around the band stand”. 

Damon Fowler is a county-tinged blues performer and “Old Fools and Barstools” trots out the old country music clichés like nobody’s business. He tells the listener how they’ll surely be able to find him drunk at the bar. That’s it. No story, no reasons, no interest except the catchy title.  One good line though  – “I don’t read my mail and I don’t answer the phone. I’m not good with people, I can’t stand being alone.”

Here is a link to the Blues Blast Magazine 2014 Awards page