Jonah Tolchin – Dockside | Album Review

Jonah Tolchin – Dockside

Clover Music Group

www.jonahtolchin.com

12 songs – 51 minutes

Singer-songwriter-guitarist Jonah Tolchin is perhaps better known for his acoustic finger-picked folk songs. His latest release, Dockside, however sees him exploring his electric blues-fueled side with a full band, a quite fitting path given that his first real gig occurred when he was 15 and Ronnie Earl heard him play at a record shop, took him to lunch and invited him onstage at a later gig.

Co-produced by Luther Dickinson (North Mississippi Allstars) and Tolchin at Dockside Studios in Maurice, Louisiana, Dockside gives Tolchin the opportunity to marinade himself in the gumbo of Louisiana and Mississippi rhythms that his father knew intimately when he ran a record store in the Mississippi Delta before Tolchin was born.  The album was recorded live in two days, and there is a joyous freedom to the performances.

Tolchin wrote 10 of the 12 tracks on the album and handles vocals, lead guitar and harmonica. He is ably backed by Dickinson on rhythm guitar (lead on “Suffering Well” and “Trust Someone”) and clave, Terence Higgins on drums, Nic Coolidge on bass and rhythm guitar, Chavonne Stewart on backing vocals (and stunning lead vocals on “Too Far Down”), Marley Munroe on backing vocals, and Chris Joyner and Carey Frank on keyboards.

The entire band is first rate, but Higgins in particular has a knack for laying down tracks with a New Orleans flavor, leaving acres of space and time. As one might expect, given the personnel involved, there is a gloriously raw, rough feel to the songs but this is not an album stuffed with poorly-conceived jams. Each song is tightly structured but flexible enough to permit the musicians to breathe and explore.

Tolchin is a fine songwriter with a voice that reeks of the ages and belies his youth. He is also a fine harmonica player (check out his solo on “Endless Highway”) and an outstanding guitar player, whether on slide (as on the funky “Mama Don’t Worry”) or when traditional flat-picking, as on the slow Zeppelin-esque blues-rock of “Nothing’s Gonna Take My Blues Away”, smartly steering away from cliched blues licks but staying firmly rooted in the style.  For fans of guitar playing, the highlight has to be the magical slow blues of the closing track, “Lucille”, on which Tolchin lets pure emotion pour through his fingers for verse after verse.

There are few simple 12 bar blues on the album, but anyone who says the minor key “Can’t Close My Eyes” is anything but the purest blues is wholly wrong.  “Vermillion River” drags Delta Blues into the 21st century, while the opening cover of Little Walter’s “Blues With A Feeling” strips the original of its Chicago influences and plants it deep in the Louisiana soil. The soul-infused “Searching For My Soul” recalls the casual genius of Eric Lindell.

Dockside is an uplifting, glorious, musical celebration.  Let’s hope Tolchin enjoyed the experience sufficiently to consider another shot at the title. Wonderful stuff.

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