Greg Sover
SONGS OF A RENEGADE
Grounded Soul Records
Glorious Blues, Soul and a Funky Rock Hybrid that Really Blossoms.
I don’t get to say this often enough but if I was flicking through the racks of a record store the striking cover of this album would capture my attention, and at the very least make me ask to hear a couple of tracks.
If one of them was the opening track My Moment, a slow and glowering anthem, where Greg throws down his marker with sublime guitar playing that not just reminds me of Robert Cray and Peter Green but Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour too; and his voice….phew he’s a Soul Man at heart that’s for damn sure.
This is followed by some mean guitar from the dirty end of the fret board and cleverly written song too in Heroes.
It’s no real surprise that a proud son of Philadelphia would be able to mix it up like this; and on Make Me Say Yeah and Deja Vu, Sover certainly isn’t afraid to visit his sensitive side and share his intimate feelings in a very articulate manner.
I quickly recognised that Greg Sover can play his electric guitar like the best in the business; but I wasn’t prepared for the mean way he makes his Resonator sing on After Me……mmmm….mmmm.
Such was the way he reinterprets the classic Bill Withers song Ain’t No Sunshine as a bittersweet Blues love song I didn’t recognise it for nearly two minutes; and I can only presume he’d been listening to Hendrix the night before the recording session as he takes his Strat into a hemisphere I normally associate with the Great Man himself.
So; if I liked that so much my ‘favourite song’ on the album must be quite special; and it is.
Quicksand which comes in at track #3 pulls all of the strands together and wraps them as tight as a coiled spring on a song which is perfect for Radio…..if Radio had any taste.
Greg Sover is/was a new name to me and probably will be to you as he seems to just tour the NE Quarter of the USA, but this album should get him attention from Blues (and Rock) aficionados around the Globe.
https://www.gregsover.com/
Released Aug 2016
The Rocking Magpie 