In his debut album, which was released June 10, Jess Wayne impressed me with his songwriting ability and ability to recruit a very solid band behind him. It’s not bad for a guy who gave up life as a successful Colorado bankruptcy lawyer seven years ago to move to southern California and find himself in the music business. No, really, that’s his story and I suspect he’s sticking to it. If he gets successful enough in his second career, I’m sure he knows people who know people who have the juice to get a biopic done.
So it’s quite ironic that one of the better songs on this album is the biting wit of Say Goodbye Hollywood. And for a relatively new professional musician, Jess has many of the emotional bases covered in his songs: for example, the sad regret of Taken You Home Last Night that opens the album slips right into the cynicism of Better Get Used To It. In turn, we get the familiar “I’m deep in the doghouse” theme of Make It Up To You.
That’s not to say “Ride The River” is a paint-by-number effort, as there are a lot of categories and genres covered by these ten tracks. Taken You Home Last Night gives me a weepy country vibe, but Better Get Used To It comes across more like smooth jazz to me, while Make It Up To You seems more adult contemporary. If I were to have a complaint about these first three songs, it would be in the way Wayne sings them – he seems to want to dictate each lyric rather than letting it flow out of him. I don’t know what the order of recording was, but it seems like it takes him until the fourth track Hold On to let it rip a little bit vocally. Jess isn’t ever going to win “The Voice” but he has nothing to be afraid or ashamed of as a vocalist as he learns how to shape songs to his voice.
It starts to come together a lot better on the back half of the collection, as Jess makes Say Goodbye Hollywood into a fun song, keeping it light for Next Time Around. Why Don’t You Lie To Me comes across as a pleading, as a lyrical twist eventually makes the song make sense. Meanwhile, up until then the band was rather tight as well – the Jess Wayne Band has a number of musical veterans in it, and this shows.
So I was a little disappointed in the strange drum line in Garden Song because it took away from the humorous yet poignant lyrics. Aside from that slight flaw, though, I thought the band was effective in being the background, particularly as there are several guests contributing bass, vocals, and harmonica, (In particular, the bassist who played on “Ride The River” is not the touring/live performance bassist.) While I generally frown on self-production – especially from budding artists – having his bandmate, keyboardist John Matthew Rosenberg, as co-producer likely smoothed over some of the excess these self-producers often have. (“Ride The River” production is credited to Rosenberg and Douglas Jessop, which is Wayne’s real name. Jess Wayne is a combination of his last and middle names.)
Luckily, I felt Wayne and his band saved the best for next-to-last. I thought the album’s highlight was the blues number How Do You Know, which has a great riff and a fantastic use of call-and-response, with the background vocals coming off just right. All I Can Do For Now provides the coda for the album, which is just ten songs but rather lengthy – Wayne puts a lot of meat on the bones of these songs, as all but two run four minutes or more.
And to be quite honest, knowing Wayne’s backstory is good for getting a perspective on the album. (I normally prefer to listen first, then read up on the artist later so as not to prejudge.) I think as Wayne learns his craft and figures out how to use a rather unique vocal style he could be successful. The album release was backed up by a modest tour in California, Arizona, and Colorado (with his Denver show billed as a “reunion of family, friends, and colleagues”) so he seems to be working hard at this musical journey.
While you can sort of pin Jess down in the adult contemporary genre, there’s enough overlap of styles that most people can find something to like about it. (In my case, it was the blues song.) But don’t take my word for it – listen for yourself and see what you think.