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Review: 'Gammage, Phil'
'From Nowhere To Somewhere'   

-  Label: 'Bandcamp/Pre-Fab International'
-  Genre: 'Blues' -  Release Date: '22.10.21.'

Our Rating:
From Nowhere To Somewhere is the latest album from Phil Gammage who is continuing to explore the blues and the hard scrabble life of a true bluesman. On this album that was recorded in New York he's joined by Brian Karp on Bass, apart from Shadow Road where Gene Perla steps in, Tony Mann on percussion with Michael Fox on drums and backing vocals from Michele Butler and Joe Nieves.

The album opens with Walk In The Sun a slow precise walking blues, with Phil's rich honeyed voice working well against the harmonica and guitar, with some cool backing vocals from Michele Butler. As this song about needing to move on and get away from a situation that's no longer tenable so you'd better go and take a Walk In The Sun and think things through.

Between The Tracks slowly unfolds as a mainly acoustic blues for the king of the tramps and how he got the title while riding those rails, the lyrical turns are deftly accentuated by some stunning guitar in the middle as they try to find a way out of Hobo Bohemia.

Voice On The Phone is a fiddle led song of yearning for a love that's left and he really wishes she was still with him. Alone And Forsaken is a slow careworn cover of the Hank Williams classic, that's full of emotion and a cool sustained organ part, with very carefully picked guitar giving this a gospel feel to it.

What Would I Do has a nice upbeat lilt to a song that's seeking some redemption and not to be left to his own devices as well he'll just fall to pieces, so go on stay with him.

The crickets are chirping at the start of Prologue as the fiddle draws us in to Come On Lightning and as the tale of careworn highways unfolds the fiddle keeps this as a gentle lilt for the roads less travelled as he waits for Lightning to plug in his Gibson and let rip, as this almost becomes a hoe-down country barnstormer.

Just Another Travelling Man is another down at heel tale of being out on the road hoping for some shelter and food and maybe a job, set to a shuffling beat and gently mesmeric guitar as those rails never seem to end.

Night Life is an elegy for all those nights spent out and about having a good time or thinking you're having a good time as you listen to the blues and hope they don't get to you too hard this is a very slow cool take on Willie Nelson's song.

Never Ending Setting Sun has a few regrets for what brought him here to a place with a Never Ending Setting Sun and some delicious guitar towards the end sort of explains it.

Shadow Road is a slow ambling blues song with mournful violin and a clear dawn vision of how things might go.

The album closes with So Long And Goodbye that has a western soundtrack feel to it with the harmonica having echoes of the soundtrack to Midnight Cowboy set to the shuffling percussion and Phil's rich honeyed tones it really is a lovey song to say goodbye too.

Find out more at http://philgammagemusic.com/ https://philgammage.bandcamp.com/album/from-nowhere-to-somewhere-album https://www.facebook.com/philgammagemusic



  author: simonovitch

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