Jimmy Robinson
Vibrating Strings
email: Jimmyrobinson
@woodenheadmusic.com
visit Jimmy's website
also available on cdbaby
This interesting disc from the main songwriter and guitar player for the fusion band Woodenhead, is basically an acoustic solo disc. Fusion from this New Orleans band refers to both Jazz-rock and Progressive-rock and there are bits of both here, but he tends to take more of a finger-picker folk approach. On this disc he gets to display his chops on acoustic guitar and on these 17 songs, he wrote all but Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary”, and the Jimmy Page/John Bonham/Robert Plant, “Kashmir”, and the ones he wrote are a fairly varied lot of songs. There are moments when his exceedingly good use of the few people who do guest appearances on the disc add some great variety to mix-up the texture of the songs a good bit. He does have Theresa Andersson on violin and vocals on three tracks, The Bonerama Horns are on, “The Wind Cries Mary,” and they do so much in a subtle way to give strong but
definite nuance to the song, and Susan Cowsill does very subtle harmony vocal on “I Can’t Believe It.”
It is when he adds these touches to the disc it breaks through from the softness that tends to enclose the disc. There is some wonderful finger and fret work, but with a lack other musicians, most of the time, to play off the songs on the disc begins to blend together and sound almost the same even though they aren’t. His singing is in a soft manner and not strong enough to separate the songs and make them stand out. Where he uses the guest musicians the disc soars above because it seems to give him something to play off, it is a strong wish that he would do it more.