March 15, 2017 Pop Explosion - Featured album Buzz Cason

Joe Vig's Pop Explosion Wednesday Ides of March show

tune in live:  http://bostonfreeradio.com


1)Buzz Cason   Walkin'

2)Geoff Bartley   "Down Payment on the Blues"

3)Jesse and the Hogg Brothers   "Biker Ann"

4)American Beauties  "Forever like the Sea"

5)Ides of March   Vehicle

6)Sidney Green St. Band   "Last Beer and Testament"

7)Carole King Live   The Locomotion

8)Laurence Juber  I Won't Last A Day Without You

9)Chicken Slacks Going to the Shack

10)Frank Dello Stritto on Robert Osborne
Duane Eddy   Gidget Goes Hawaiian

11)The Ventures   My Bonnie
King Kong Returns film review

12)The Voodoos   Voodoo Walk
Head Shot, Indonesian movie Frank Dello Stritto review

13)The Renegades  Ghost Train

14)Frank De Vol  "House on Haunted Hill"

15)Bookhouse Boys     Waste It

16)Feed The Kitty   California Country Girl

17)The Beauty Way  When I Came In 

18)Sev Grossman Interview

19)The Beauty Way   6, 7

20)Don't Kick me When I'm Down


21)Elsewhere   Don't You Believe Me Baby

22)If We Go At All  Anteroom

22)Mikey Wax  Bottle of Jack

23)The Facctones  Psychic Barber

24)5th Dimension Wedding Bell Blues


In The Blink of Life

\https://www.cdbaby.com/cd/aprilmartin2

Artist: Buzz Cason

Album: Passion

Eleven tracks

Review by Joe Viglione

Looking at Buzz Cason’s material on Discogs or AllMusic.com and hearing his new Passion album one gets the sense that the music industry has an obligation to artists creating something as driving, catchy and important as this essential release.  An obligation to get this music into as many ears as possible.  Perfectly sequenced, be it track 6, “Like a Dog,” or that which follows, “Just as Gone,” wherever one drops the proverbial needle rocking, introspective and appealing melodies flow over the danceable undercurrent.  Cason’s voice is distinct and to the point.  The guitar riffs are key, a component Ian Hunter utilizes – though the two artists are on different sides of the fence, they’d be a complementary pairing in concert.  Hunter’s 10 song Fingers Crossed disc and Cason’s eleven tune Passion are releases by two masters in control of their sound and their message.  The music here rises above the categories and labels – “Americana,” “country rock,” “Southern pop,” the telling “Fear” is philosophical, as the aforementioned Hunter certainly likes to be, but – again – from a different perspective.  “We Soldiered On” feels like a paean to what Joe South and Gordon Lightfoot were fervently providing in the ‘70s, elaborating on those themes with superb production that brings each instrument its on space, the combination making for a listenable collection that stands up to dozens of spins.  I’ve kept this disc front and center for the better part of three weeks, and it begs repeated listens.    

Venturing to Cason’s Apple iTunes page https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/passion/id1202014300  is like walking into a brick and mortar store and finding a stack of wax to plow through, especially for the listener unaware of this man who jammed with Elvis and put vocals on some of Presley’s posthumous releases.  The title track has lilting guitars that merge with the symphonic strings/keys while Buzz tells the story with an abundance of descriptive words, distilling into the one word chorus.”Passion.”   The harmonica on “Bread” sets the stage for this pop-goes-to-the-old-west essay.  Not the Jerry Ross composition that was famously on the flip side of Bobby Hebb’s “Sunny,” this “Bread” is a Cason original, personal manna from heaven as “there was a time when I thought life should give me a free pass,” diving into a chorus that is the solution.  Fans of Neil Young can find much power in these tracks, “Will You Love Me” having Young’s transcendence and grit.  Three of the eleven tracks reach over the four minute mark, the other seven within the pop confines of 2:49 to 3:27, succinct and trenchant, expressing a variety of emotions.  Be it “Walkin,” or “That’s the Way it Is,” the train chugs along with improvisational narratives that each deliver their own brand of fun.