Artist:     Randall Bramblett

Album:     Pine Needle Fire

Label:     New West Records

Release Date:     11.13.2020   

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BUY PHYSICAL

This Pine Needle Fire smokes, snaps, and sparkles on the energy of everyday realities, and the enormous talents of a man and his superb band. Georgia son Randall Bramblett was first noticed in the early 1970s for his knack on sax and keys. Gregg Allman, Bonnie Raitt, Traffic, and the Blind Boys of Alabama are among the many whose music he’s enhanced over the decades since.

Bramblett’s exceptional compositional skills came to the fore when he joined now-Rolling Stone pianist Chuck Leavell’s Sea Level, later in the 70s. Throughout his own twelve albums, he’s developed an idiosyncratic, charismatic, and highly entertaining mix of rock, soul, and rhythm and blues to underscore his impactful views and reflections.

Bramblett’s songs run the full gamut of emotions, all rich in metaphoric prose. “Some Poor Soul” opens this latest collection on a peal of ethereal guitar, signifying a man stirring in bed and pondering the poor soul in the hotel room next door who’s beginning his day before the day begins. The idea, and the overall effects throughout the song, are riveting. Warbling funk and explosions of soul propel “Rocket to Nowhere,” which recounts the travails of a loved one lost to the demons of addiction. Smidgens of its melody resemble Steely Dan’s “Kid Charlemagne,” the title of it even dropped within the lyrics—“Kid Charlemagne skipping in the ragged jukebox of your brain.” The simile in that line strikes brilliantly, as Steely Dan wrote their song about the downfall of Owsley “Bear” Stanley, San Francisco’s psychedelic-era LSD king.

Bramblett sings in a reedy tenor full of conviction and heart. The airs surrounding the songs—Southern, but unconventionally so—drift like lustrous ghosts, and shuffle and drive like James Brown’s boots. Michael C. Steele’s bass, Seth Hendershot’s drums, Nick Johnson and Davis Causey’s guitars, Gerry Hansen’s percussion, and a variety of backing strings, horns, and voices, aid Bramblett in providing the potent juice. Take “Lazy (And I Know It).” Bramblett and the band draw a vivid picture of a character lounging about, contemplating things such as “People say I’m lazy, but I’m working hard in my mind.” They then flash a light on today’s dark state of affairs in the tongue-in-cheek “Another Shining Morning,” but the relaxed, acoustic-based “I’ve Got Faith in You” offers a healing salve. Tommy Talton, Bramblett’s bandmate long ago in the country/rock group Cowboy, plays beautiful slide in the latter song on the guitar Duane Allman used at the shows comprising the iconic Allman Brothers album, At Fillmore East. That connection to the past bolsters Bramblett’s belief in hope, besides the fact that it sounds so sweet.

Contrary to the thoughts he expresses in the grinding rocker “Built to Last,” Randall Bramblett certainly was built that way. His songs have rolled right along with the times, not a one sounding the same, but every one sounding like him alone. On Pine Needle Fire, Randall Bramblett proves himself once again as one of the most important contemporary musical artists of our day.

—Tom Clarke