Artist: Handsome Jack
Album: Everything’s Gonna Be Alright
Label: Alive Naturalsound Records
Release Date: 10.19.18
Birth records and other proof of residence may say otherwise, but from the sound of Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, Handsome Jack could claim a Southern heritage. Hailing from Lockport, New York, the trio’s latest yield of slow-burning, swampy blues and warm, soulful boogie rock points to a “deep in the heart of Dixie” upbringing, but Handsome Jack is an East Coast band through and through. Their confident swagger is a dead giveaway.
Unabashedly retro, earthy and raw, bumping and grinding tracks like “Keep On” and the darker, grittier voodoo of “Bad Blood” and “Hey Mama” suggest a murky kinship with Creedence Clearwater Revival that makes it hard to believe they weren’t born on the bayou. Then again, the sunny R&B of “Baby Be Cool”—so engaging, with its unrefined charm, its yearning horns and easy stride—must have been spawned in Memphis or Muscle Shoals. So, too, the cool, breezy “Why Do I Love You the Way I Do” longs for the heyday of Stax Records, with a lush carpet of Tom Stanford’s saxophone lining its floors and an abiding love for The Rascals that’s hard to fake.
Filling a void left by the break-up of the Black Crowes, Handsome Jack’s Jamison Passuite (guitars/vocals), Joey Verdonselli (bass/vocals) and Bennie Hayes (drums/vocals) puff out their hairy, ‘70s Southern rock chests on “Getting Stronger” and the title track, while affecting a strutting, honky-tonk drawl for “City Girls” that has the Rolling Stones spray painted all over it. Harold E. Pollinger III even adds a little piano boogie-woogie that Ian Stewart would surely love. Nothing sounds forced on Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, as vintage songwriting and wide-ranging diversity seem to come naturally to Handsome Jack. And those raspy, passionate vocals are somehow both endearing and dangerous. Handsome Jack should have plenty of admirers.
—Peter Lindblad
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