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Friday, April 19, 2013

CD Reviews: John Friday and Yankee Jack



John Friday, Coastal Cowboy

John Friday is a self–described "Tropical Balladeer and Displaced Pirate" who originally hails from Maryland. The singer/songwriter's eclectic background includes a stint as a crabber on the Chesapeake Bay, as well as assorted attempts at college, studying subjects from biology to business. After an injury ended his thirteen year Army career, Friday settled in the Naples area of Florida and started writing songs and performing in the local bars. In 2009, he released his first full length cd, "Coastal Dreamin'", which included the rollicking ditties “Ain’t Missing a Thing” and “Rita’s Going Wild”.

That’s the intro to an interview I did with John, aka “The Teddy Bear of Trop Rock”, a couple years back. Since then, I have had a number of chances to hear John play live – including a memorable House Concert in Atlanta where he played…and played…and played…for over four hours, mixing in his impressive collection of originals with some creative cover songs. That event, hosted by a group I co-founded called the Atlanta Trop Rock Alliance, was also the first place I heard some of the tunes that would wind up on his latest cd, “Coastal Cowboy” – also a collection of mostly originals with a couple of carefully chosen covers..

The cd kicks off with the rocking party starter, “Beachfront” where John describes a typical Parrot Head pot luck: “You bring the tequila, I’ll bring the salt and limes”.  The next track, “Home”, brims with optimism and positive vibes – over a shuffling guitar track and 60’s Soul organ fills. It’s hard to hold a frowny face when you have a church choir singing, “So happy” over and over! As someone who can’t wait to ditch the city life for a Salty Piece of Land, the whistful “Coastal Dreamin’”, track three on the cd, has become the soundtrack to my life – as well as a source of inspiration. Like the song says, “…these coastal dreams are all I need to get me through the day”.

Other stand out cuts include the title track, which jumbles together images of Cowboys and Sailboats (sort of a Trop Rock version of Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive”) and “Kisses With My Coffee”, a sweet and sentimental love song with a super catchy chorus. Friday’s twisted sense of humor takes a front seat in the half kids’ ditty/half barroom sing along, “Nils The Rasta Viking”. “He took his shield and made a steel drum out of it…he’s Nils the Rasta Viking, drinking rum and aquavit”. I mentioned covers earlier – Michael Franti & Spearhead’s 2009 Summer hit, “Say Hey (I Love You)” gets the Teddy Bear treatment, and John pays tribute to one of his musical inspirations, Dan Fogelberg, with a beautiful ballad titled “When You’re Not Near Me”, a cut from Fogelberg’s 2003 cd, “Full Circle”.



Yankee Jack, Key West Conch-troversial

Sitting up close to hear Yankee Jack in a bar  is like being in the front row at a Gallagher show – eventually, you’re gonna get hit with something. Only, in Jack’s case, it’s not sledgehammered fruit – it’s humor, mostly of the “not politically correct” variety. Tourists, foreigners, gays, fat people, skinny people, women with large breasts – breasts in general. They all get lovingly attended to (or skewered) at a Yankee Jack show. Typical Jack Joke (paraphrased): “They’re outlawing mini skirts on Duval Street. The problem is the testicles hanging below the hemline”. Bad-dum-bum. If you’ve been to Key West, chances are you’ve heard Yankee Jack. He holds court most weekdays at the Bull and Whistle on Duval  and – given the open air layout of the first-floor Bull – the laughter and music is usually heard spilling out into the street.

Key West Conch-troversial, Jack’s latest cd of original material, is a conglomeration of “straight” material with plenty of his over the top musical comedy. The opening track, a tribute to his adopted home town (originally from new England, Jack moved to Key West in 1989) “Cayo Hueso”, mixes the two. One minute he’s singing about sleeping on the beach under the stars, the next he’s admiring a woman with “a great caboose”. “Same Sex Sunday” is not about spending part of the weekend hanging out with your own gender, like the title might imply. Instead, it’s an ode to stuck in a rut marriages (“What we used to do like stars of porn is scheduled now for Sunday morn”). “Jesus Was a Democrat” will probably tweak those on the Right but, then again, Conservative has never been a word associated with Key West. “The Last Mudslide” is a musical shout out to Jack’s main employer that floats a familiar theme  – a Key West visitor that isn’t quite ready to head back home (“I’m strapped in a plane and I wish I were back – drinking Mudslides on the bar at the Bull”).

More of the larger than life Yankee Jack’s humor appears on “If It Flirts, Floats Or Flies, Rent It” (“A woman gives you nookie, but she might wind up to look like Snookie”) and the title track, another tribute to his adopted island home, “Very Conch-troversial” (“The Southernmost point is my new home, I come from a land they call bitch and moan, and half this island’s getting stoned”). But, just when you think you’ve got Jack figured out as a jokester and humorist, he slides comfortably into a soft piano ballad like “The Sea”, or a catchy Trop rock toast to a seaside town, like “Casco Bay”.  

For a taste of Jack’s live show, check out his cd, “The Best Of Yankee Jack Live in Key West”. Just don’t sit too close to the speakers.  http://yankeejack.com/


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