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 East-Bay
singer-songwriter Lucas Ohio emerged a few years back as one of the
talents to watch in the Bay Area. He is very today without
seeming mechanical about it, which isn't as easy as it sounds in a
professional music environment that tendrils out into a hundred niché
markets. The tendency is to get really tactical about one's approach to
his work, but Lucas is a Slingshot Kid, the title of his new CD.
He shot the lights out with this one.
By RAR
Anyone
who has lost a mother knows that the severing of that umbilical
connection to the only face-on God you will ever know is a reality
shifting event. The old world, that included her - the one who brought
you into this realm – suddenly becomes a dream of floating memories, and
the new world, without her, is like a million pathways, all to unknown
places; a million ways to strike out alone.
Enter
Lucas Ohio, grandson of California’s
earliest chronicler (Lucas Ohio Pattie is his full name), who seemed to
perform sophisticated music for live audiences before he was really
technically prepared to achieve that feat. But there he was, winning
college crowds over in San Luis Obispo, where he went to university, and
then being selected for San Francisco’s KFOG radio station’s annual
“Best of the Bay” CD compilations. He was invited to the prestigious
Kerrville Folk Festival, which is an honor accorded to a very few
singer-songwriters, and then he was signed to a Bay Area management
group, who has him performing at some of the Bay Area’s top venues
(e.g., Great American Music Hall where he was recently on the bill with
remnant folk-rockers Poco).
My sense is that he
accomplished all of this before he had really found his true self, which
the title of his latest CD, Slingshot Kid,
with the cover shot of his dear mother and grandmother, holding him as a
baby back in 1984, might suggest is now all cogitation for the rear-view
mirror. Lucas Ohio’s natural gift with songwriting is headed down
through braveheart pass where his personal identity is flourishing full
form, and where his musician’s skills are catching up to the fire in his
soul. He is also keeping really good musical company.
Slingshot Kid
opens with “Always See You (Wide Awake)”, which is a fierce statement of
strength and devotion featuring some sharp electric guitar by
John Howland and a reggae-inflected groove by bassist
Andrew Gibson and some exceptionally
sharp drumming by Mike Stevens. Mr.
Stevens can play his way passed the sun, fueled only by his tasty licks
and precision.
“Christmas Clover” takes
Lucas Ohio into a poet’s realm, describing musical travelers, some
Tennessee bound, looking for one thing, getting another. This song has
alt-folk-rock radio (is that a genre?) all over it. The college kids
will listen to a few chords of “Slingshot Kid”, another paean to
wondering identity seekers, and find themselves replaying this CD over
and over. If Lucas Ohio is lost, he is lost in an inspiring way and kids
more lost may find a buoy in the Slingshot Kid, watching the great world
spin. This is movie music, a closing credits piece, and it is perfect.
There is a wonderful
video of Lucas Ohio performing “Squeeze” at Armando’s in Martinez,
California, which has been a venue extremely supportive of him. This is
another flat-out winner in which Lucas achieves that lift that puts a
singer’s voice above the frame, peering God-like onto the scene,
describing it with convincing clarity. There is a bit of Van Morrison in
Lucas Ohio (“by the company that you keep…”), but that is incidental. I
don’t really know if there is anyone quite like the Slingshot Kid.
“Downstream” is another
emotive and happy-sounding track about independence and clarity and
having a pretty good attitude about being foiled again. Lucas is
incredibly likeable in his lack of pretense. “Sweet Like Tea” is just
like that, an acoustic-based ditty, that has a funky backbeat when the
tea sweetness becomes a lion. We are back on the road with the next
track, “Golden Roads”, which continues introspective inquiries into the
where, why and what of things. He is a little like Bob Dylan in his
Nashville incarnation, in terms of the general ambience of his
presentation; the sincerely worn troubadour awash in pedal steel and big
swelling choruses.
“Johnny Blazes”
continues the reggae feel in a way that may get him covered by Mick
Jagger; this song has a kind of louche outré Stones feel, as if Lucas as
Mick is hanging out with Garland Jeffreys. This whole CD, produced by
Rondo Brothers’ Jim Greer, arranged
by John Howland, engineered on
various tracks by Calvin Turnbull, Sammy
Fielding, and Tim Carter, is just really well done. There is
no inconsistency from one track to the next, which is a credit to Lucas
Ohio, as well as his team, because he shows up and breathes life into
every minute of this recording.
“I’ll Tell You Son” –
tell me Momma, what am I here for? This is a building thumper that would
be a dynamite show opener. It has that Bruce Springsteen rallying cry
feel, and Lucas Ohio is certainly every bit the poet that is grandpa
leather pants (aka “the boss”). “Tequila Rose” has a lot of Tom Waits
going on in within, who is another vague reference that exists subtly
within Lucas Ohio’s persona. There is something about a raspy voice that
makes a singer feel authentic and honest and it is the Slingshot Kid’s
natural way of expression. The acoustic guitar arrangements on Ohio’s
tunes are always nicely realized, with traveling bass lines that give
musicality to the sparsest of passages, though sparse isn’t really part
of the approach here; it’s just a part of the sense of eloquence that
comes through. One finds there to be room for everybody in the
production of these arrangements, and every contributor can be heard.
“Let Peace Be Our Guide”
sounds as if it was recorded by Lucas himself, possibly at his kitchen
table, possibly to sneak a bit of raw material onto this studio work.
The song has a good heart, like Lucas Ohio himself, and it begs for the
world to start making sense. He is off to battle in this one, going down
that lonesome road again. “If you must go leave a short note on my front
porch…looking forward, looking back…”
“Ain’t Good Enough for
You” is probably stuck as the last track because it is the most
musically audacious and eager to be liked by commercial radio. This is
the one track on the CD that I might feel most uncertain about. It will
probably become a monster hit.
_________
___________________
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Left
to Right: Andrew Gibson, Mike Stevens, Lucas Ohio Pattie,
John Howland. These troublemakers surrounding the
appreciative and happy band leader (Lucas Ohio) are the
people you are looking for, if you are a singer-songwriter
interested in crisp, world-music types of sounds. Mr. smarty
pants there in the tie, Mike Stevens, is a really, really
cool drummer. He and bassist Gibson are deep in every groove
and guitarist/steel player Howland is top flight. These guys
comprise a musical force ready made for broad exposure.
VISIT
LUCAS OHIO'S WEBSITE (use this link).
Lucas Ohio Pattie performs at Threadgill Theater located on
Quiet Valley Ranch, 39th annual Kerrville Folk Festival,
Kerrville Texas. Photo by Neale Eckstein |
Learning
from Jimmy Iovine
