Jeff Dale and the South Woodlawners – Blues Room 1.27.12

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Jeff Dale and The South Woodlawners

Blues Room

Self-released

BluesWax Rating: 7

Valient Sophomore Release

Blues Room is the second release from Jeff Dale and the South Woodlawners, according to his website. Dale believes that “blues music is a conduit for the human spirit.” He grew up on the south side of Chicago, writing his first blues song at the age of 14.

The album opens with “This Time,” which progressively gets to the theme that “this time is different” and now is at a point of no return. This could infer that this album is a “do or die” calling card to his talents and an “it’s now or never” approach to his career and the lessons he has learned up until this point in his life and evolution as a musician. Track 2, “Stumblin’,” is a familiar shuffle that has barroom jam-friendly lyrics and arrangements.

Next, the title third track, “Blues Room,” has haunting intro and outro bookends. This original blues tune fills its center with a swinging, upbeat melody and is surprisingly not as long in play length than it actually is. Tracks two and three were recorded at Beta Records in Hollywood, California.

A low-fi and open hall sound approach is taken in Los Angeles with tracks 5 and 8, which are more traditional recording approaches and everyone seems better mixed and matched.

The last three tracks are frolicking and dance-happy tunes that are probably part of the bands regular live routine.

Most of the tracks were recorded at RBJ Studios and sound as if they were multi-tracked. Dale wrote all the songs on this album and also chose to produce all songs himself.

The vocals seem to be somewhat overly affected in many places. Musically, there are some continuity issues in several songs and many are more familiar than new. With that said, there are some radio-friendly songs available here. Blues Room is a valiant effort for a second release, causing me to give this recording a seven out of ten rating.

Charley Burch is a producer and writer from Memphis, Tennessee and a contributing writer at BluesWax.