57 Street
Terry G. Reed
Old Poet Music
2000
10.5 tracks
It's difficult to review a release which has little or nothing wrong with it, yet has as little to redeem it. 57 Street is one of those releases. It features competently written songs played and sung competently, nothing more. At root, it's a passable demo of some mediocre songs.
A century or two ago, people differentiated between true poets and versifiers who wrote only doggerel. The same comparison seems to apply in today's music market. No matter how mundane their subject matter, some writers can create beautifully evocative verses that draw in and hold the listener. Others understand how to build a technically sound verse structure but fail to see the difference between the creative and the cliche. It's the difference between Wordsworth and Woolworths. Terry G. Reed is, unfortunately, pure five and dime.
The fiddle intro of "Right Between Her Lies" suggests that that this release will feature country music. 57 Street does feature a lot of loping country rhythms and whining steel guitar. For all that, though, this music resembles most the sort of countrified pop music popularized long ago by artists like Sue Thompson and Skeeter Davis.
The subject matter of Reed's sweet, sad, sentimental lyrics has the potential to approach the popularity of songs like Thompson's hit "Sad Movies Always Make Me Cry" if they were revised to hold more universal appeal. Certainly there have been many successful songs about divorce, lost love, children, and heartaches in the past. For now, however, Reed's songs are too personal, sometimes more like whines than tales intended for public telling.
There is also a discrepancy in Reed's message. Most of Reed's songs take a very politically correct approach to their subject matter, yet in "Politically Incorrect" he opines that "the politically incorrect need to take a stand today." Could this explain the blandness of Reed's songs? Perhaps instead of taking that stand he is playing safe and not expressing what he really feels.
Some readers may have wondered why I have listed "10.5" tracks for this release. The track listed as "7" is not a song at all but a longish intro for "57 Street" sung by a child. This is unfortunate. This child sings with enunciation which is almost incomprehensible and early on becomes irritating. This adds nothing to the song which follows.
The title song attempts to draw some sort of metaphorical connection between this release, life, and a '57 Chevy (a hardtop coupe, judging by the photo on the liner). While a valiant effort, like the rest of this release, this metaphor doesn't quite work and we end up with something more resembling a grey '53 sedan.
I'm not even sure this is a commercial release. It certainly feels like a demo, and there are a number of clues [including the gold disc with paper label sticker] to suggest that it's home-made. Perhaps it has been sent out prematurely. As I have mentioned, there's nothing really wrong with this recording. The problem is more that there's also nothing really right with it. Somewhere beneath the lacklustre surface, however, one senses talent waiting to be polished.
Reed has a sweet voice, somewhat along the lines of Dickie Lee enhanced by an occasional Jud Strunk trill. Right now, he's singing the words in key and in all the right places. With practice in performance, he can learn to sing perhaps a little less perfectly but with more feeling.
As a lyricist, Reed seems to have the technical stuff down, and he has a reasonable sense of his subject matter. Here too, it's a matter of developing his skills beyond that base, of learning to expand his personal issues so as to draw in and involve his audience more. He's certainly got a big head start over the beginning lyricist.
Reed's melodies have a sameness about them that may not hold listener interest. It may be that he should concentrate on developing his skill as a lyricist and find a composer to collaborate with on the music.
It would be interesting to see what Terry G. Reed can do with a couple more years' experience under his belt.
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