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Randall Bramblett
Rich Someday
Release date: July 25, 2006
Arguably the ultimate ‘team player’ in American rock/blues/soul music, Randall Bramblett has made himself so valuable as a singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter for other groups and artists that his own solo work has too often gotten short shrift, with compressed recording-time windows and supporting tours abbreviated by his many outside, ‘on-call’ studio and touring obligations. But for Rich Someday, Randall’s third solo disc for New West Records, this deep-rooted Georgia native was afforded the luxury of virtually unlimited studio time with his own hand-picked touring band, resulting in the finest recording of his long career.
A fluid, fluent master of piano, organ and saxophones—AND equipped with a distinctive, velvet hammer of a vocal rasp that fairly oozes vintage R&B/soul tradition—Bramblett boasts a top-drawer resume that traces the Southern rock lineage (from ARS, Gregg Allman and Sea Level right on up through Gov’t. Mule and Widespread Panic), adding cool side-trips into the blues/R&B (John Hammond, Francine Reed, Johnny Jenkins), alt-rock (Vigilantes of Love) and rock icons Steve Winwood and Levon Helm along the way.
In addition, his sturdy songbook has been tapped by such disparate artists as the late Rock’n’Roll Hall of Famer Rick Nelson, roadhouse legend Delbert McClinton and, most recently, the incandescent Bonnie Raitt (who covered Randall and Davis Causey’s “God Was In The Water” on 2005’s Souls Alike).
The seed of the new Rich Someday was planted two years ago when Bramblett and guitar wizard Causey (a long-running musical tag-team since before their days with Sea Level) set about assembling a new band in Athens. Davis arranged a hook-up with drummer/producer Gerry Hansen (Sean Mullins, Amy Ray, Jennifer Daniels) and, in short order, everything else just fell into place.
“Gerry kinda pulled this whole thing together,” Bramblett says. “He lives in Lawrenceville, over near Atlanta, and he has a little studio there. I played some sessions with him; he was great—a song-oriented drummer who really paid attention to serving the song. I knew he was the right guy, and I talked him into joining.”
Hansen was also responsible for connecting with the final two cogs, recommending rhythm guitarist/vocalist Mike Hines from Atlanta and bassist/vocalist Michael C. Steele from rural Athens. Both had wide-ranging backgrounds (including country sessions), got along famously in the group and—as a bonus—Hines proved invaluable with website set-up and merchandising.
“When we rehearsed, we found out they both could play and sing anything,” Randall recalls, “so we knew this was the right band. We’ve been together two years now, and it just gets better and better…”
“This is a real band,” he continues with palpable enthusiasm, “and Rich Someday is more of a band record than I’ve ever been able to put together; we didn’t use any outside people except for one singer.” [Michael Jones on “Somebody Like Me” and “Stupid Shoes”]
But isn’t it a bit, uh, odd to have a drummer as a producer?
“It is,” admits Randall, “and while I thought he was a great drummer, I didn’t know that he was such a great producer until I started recording over there.”
Hansen’s cozy and relatively accessible home studio initially may have served as a site for rehearsals and demos, but Bramblett and his band quickly became enamored of not only the immediate, transparent sound of the recordings, but also the spontaneous, natural vibe—and the drummer’s production skills came to the fore immediately.
“We all wanted it to be more organic—a little trashier and funkier sounding,” says Bramblett, “and Gerry was such a leader with his suggestions, his playing, his arrangements and his approach to—his vision of—the record. No matter what you do or say, when you go to Nashville or to a more established place, it always gets a little slicker than you want it, but Gerry kept us on task to do what the song required. He’d push us to play in ways we wouldn’t normally, and when it fell into place and felt just right—even if it was raw and ragged—that’s when the song was done.”
Still, Randall insists, “We all had a part in the process, and Davis Causey had great input, as usual. I haven’t mentioned him nearly enough. He has a truly unique style and the ear for putting unusual sounds in; he adds a special sound to our group that couldn’t have come from anybody else.”
Bramblett wrote or co-wrote (three with Causey, two with Buddy Blackmon and one with Jason Slatton) all of Rich Someday’s thirteen tracks, and his startlingly soulful voice (thanks, in part, to a newly-found “cheap Chinese” microphone that gave his pipes “the edge we were looking for”) has never sounded better.
Riding a tightly-wound, serpentine path through the rich musical soil that spawned them, the band dials into blues, rock, soul, and R&B (plus a healthy dose of singer/songwriter introspection) as Randall works a dominant theme of disconnection—both real and imagined—from lovers and loved ones, from society, from sanity, and from the natural world.
Yet—far from being bleak—the overriding message of Rich Someday is a pure, uplifting one: open your eyes to the simple, everyday joys and pleasures that surround you, and you just may find that you’re already hip-deep in a wealth that cannot be taxed nor taken from you.
And that’s gotta be—like this reckid—a very good thing…
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