Steve Turner...singer/songwriter?
Dwayne Rogers | Barstow, CA | 07/19/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I came to be aware of Steve Turner after hearing his great guitar work with the last quarter-century's most underrated band, Mudhoney. He plays great lead guitar in Mudhoney, but hardly ever sings -- only backup and "Paperback Life" -- and on a few tracks with side-project band The Sad and Lonely[s]. But it was his debut solo 7" 'Nothin' But The Blues' that turned me on to his guitar-driven, soulful, solo-stylings. This, his third release (after Searching For Melody, and A Beautiful Winter [EP]), takes it up a notch. A few songs from the last album are redone as duets with Holly Gollightly (?spellling). Stand-out tracks are "Greenback Dollar" a great cover of the old song, "I Love The Sound of my Guitar When it Sings" and basically the rest of the CD has some meaningful sentiment, including my fav "Dimebag Bag Blues", a song about long-gone girlfriends and the like. No song is sub-par -- great CD which slipped under the radar last fall. If you like Mudhoney, Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt or any "real" music or musicians it is hard not to like this album."
Blues, folk, garage rock...and amazing songwriting
J.B. | NYC | 12/21/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I was expecting this to be a nice diversion; a half-hour's worth of folky songs done by a collection of grunge-rock pals goofing around and "that chick who duets on all of the garage-rock records". What I got instead was a stunning collection of songs touching on blues, folk and rock that is easily one of the year's best. Turner has the perfect voice to accompany these tales of ex-girlfriends, hard times and the joy of playing music. The fact that he writes about the same types of characters and the same geographic reigon as Isaac Brock could draw some comparisons to early Modest Mouse, but Turner invests the songs with great empathy instead of Brock's self-conscious bluster. And the first duet with Holly Golightly, "A Beautiful Winter", is about as perfect a tale of longing over a missed opportunity as you're going to find on an album this year. Lastly, with Turner's mix of folk-rock, acoustic slide, and messy blues guitar styles, fans of Uncle Tupelo's first two albums will find a lot to like here."