Evan R. O'Keefe
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Amazing lyrics, Amazing Sound, Amazing Album
Richmond Special is like listening to a good CD, and not the radio.
OK, maybe somewhat a bad analogy, but an accurate analogy. I find myself wishing that either mainstream music, or even pop, or rock stations, would play something that wasn’t based in the 70’s, 80’s or 00’s. The seventies music, you have heard for thirty years. The Eighties music, twenty years, (90’s music I don’t hear often enough to include it, but I live in a small town in NM), and the two-thousand’s (no clue what they call it) music, is generally bad – radio wise.
Thankfully, we have Richmond Special by Danny Scherr. It has a Tom Petty feel to it and it obviously is no album written by any current top 40 artist. This is evident because the lyrics make sense and the sound is amazing.
I purchased the album after hearing the song “Too Far Down” on Pandora. The melody and lyrics of the song bring me back to a time when music was actually that, music – when an artist wrote their own song and the listener could relate to the lyrics.
“Too Far Down” is just a good beginning for buying a CD that is only based on a single song.
The first track, “Always Goes That way”, (which has a Tom Petty sound) is a great beginning to the album. “Fade Me In”, the second track, a good acoustic work keeps the listener entranced with the melody and the lyrics stating “I don’t want to lose you to him”.
The third track, “How I Lost a Day”, another acoustic work that falls in place with “Fade Me In” is just the beginning of a series of songs that hold the album together. “How I Lost a Day”, is followed by “Too Far Down”, which is my personal favorite. “Too Far Down” is a great acoustic song with lyrics that can honestly be felt as truthful. Even though this is only the fourth track, the album continues to enlighten the listener.
“Love Again” is a great song Claiming “I never thought I would fall in love again, until I found you”. Another song so far in a series of five that you find lyrics that relate to everyday life. “Love Again”, a heavier song on the album, is followed by “Make My Day”, which again is another heavier (comparatively speaking) electric song with true lyrics.
“Don’t Know Why”, track seven, an acoustic song, is similar to “Too Far Down”, but doesn’t quite carry the weight that “Too Far Down” does. Yet, “Don’t Know Why”, is both an acoustical and lyrical accomplishment.
“The Next Motel”, another acoustic, conjures up images (for me) of the New Mexico landscape on a trip somewhere along old Route 66. Those old Motels are still to be found, and there is a romantic feel in the song for me. “The Next Motel”, is followed by the heavier “‘Til I’m In Love Again”. “‘Til I’m In Love Again”, which has a more Pettyish sound than the few previous songs falls in place with the earlier Petty sounding songs.
Forging the very last two songs together is “Let It Go”, the last song on the album. “Let It Go”, a song with passion that began with the first song of the album, claims “It should be so easy to let it go”. However, it leaves no explanation as to why it is so hard to let it go. Richmond Special doesn’t need an explanation to “let it go”, because there is no reason to. The lyrics and melodies make up the reason to keep listening, and to not “let it go”.
Richmond Special, a great relief from today’s radio, follows the life of Danny Scherr, and leaves the listener finding solace in the lyrics and truth in the song. A variety of Tom Petty guitar to Scherr’s great lyrics and own personal sound, Richmond Special is not an album to pass up.
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