Randall Bramblett

Paradise Breakdown

New West Records

 Show me another singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist in the style and of the caliber of Randall Bramblett, and I’ll show you an authentic Fountain of Youth. Yes, Bramblett is that unique, and that good. Paradise Breakdown presents a set of ruminations through deeply drawn characters in often abstract situations swimming in swampy mélanges of blues, folk, gospel, rock, and soul. All that, yet easy for a listener to enjoy. And all par for Bramblett’s course. Randall Bramblett’s songs have been so consistently characteristic of his unique artistry through the years, he has virtually created a genre of music all his own. And he may have beaten me to the Fountain, because his vast talents, including his bristly tenor singing voice, hit the notes here as soulfully and robustly as ever. Quite something, considering that he began his livelihood over 50 years ago as the go-to piano and sax player for several of Southern Rock’s architects.

To be clear, Randall Bramblett’s songwriting and sound bleed the south, but have never resembled anything like Southern Rock. The initial ingredients of his turns of phrase began simmering in his songs when he was a member of Sea Level, the mid-1970s Allman Brothers offshoot led by pianist Chuck Leavell, long now of the Rolling Stones. Sea Level stepped out of the box, and Bramblett kept on stepping, into associations as far reaching as Bonnie Raitt to Traffic and all the way to Deep Purple’s Roger Glover. All the while, he built his own impressive body of works, collected now on 14 studio albums. Paradise Breakdown finds Randall Bramblett taking stock, as only he can, of the ups and downs in this ride of life.

Bramblett affords much of the credit to the musicians on hand for the glowing success of the songs on Paradise Breakdown. Most prominently present among them are longtime cohorts and touring partners, drummer Gerry Hansen and guitarist Nick Johnson. They ease their way into a tick tock rhythm for the album-opening “Fire Down in Our Souls,” steadily building a head of steam that takes on a life of its own, the first riveting chapter in what becomes a grand scheme.

“We Had it All the Time” moves to a smooth wave of soul, the bitterness over a love lost eased by frank release, and shot through by a cobalt blue, knife-edged guitar solo. “Throw My Cane Away,” the album’s first single, was inspired by Bramblett’s friend’s story of his chance meeting with Dr. John. Bramblett twisted the narrative, inserted a ghost, and focused the song on the freedom of substance recovery, setting it all to some old school be-boppin’ R&B. Certainly something to dance to. The second single, “Round and ‘Round the Sun,” rocks deliberately on an infectious melody and hard-charging guitar riffs, its lyrics showing how no matter that we are all “Barely hangin’ on,” we live in a world full of incredible possibility. “Come On,” with its tough, Los Lobos-like sax and R&B groove, illustrates how we all seem to flee from the truth, hiding it, even from ourselves.

Produced crystal clearly and full of punch, Paradise Breakdown never lets up until it crashes at its conclusion into the heavy-duty, life-shattering blues of “Worried about Money.”

Bettye LaVette recently cut what became a Grammy-nominated album comprised entirely of Randall Bramblett songs. The legendary R&B singer said at the time, “Randall Bramblett is the best writer that I have heard in the last 30 years.” Paradise Breakdown proves her point through extraordinary entertainment.

Tom Clarke for MAS

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