“The Grounds Keepers”
Singer-songwriter vocal and guitar CD and iTunes tracks
by Dana Hubbard
http://danahubbard.com/cdtgk.html
CD Baby for orders and samples
http://cdbaby.com/cd/danahubbard3
$12.97 CD or $9.97 MP3
Dana Hubbard was the best performer at the recent Tucson Folk Festival. I was knocked out by his guitar playing and vocal delivery. He tunes his vintage acoustic guitar down from E to C# (a minor third), resulting in powerful bass, amplified with a custom pickup configurations.
On “The Grounds Keepers,” just released, Hubbard opens with loose, spacious guitar styling and powerful singing. The entire recording is clear and transparent. He is a confident solo artist: singer, player, songwriter.
He has a rich bass voice that ranges up to bright, high baritone. Occasional harmony overdubs aren’t as effective as Hubbard’s solo singing. There’s also a bit of harmonica, for occasional accent.
I can’t easily tell when he’s using open tuning versus conventional guitar tuning, because his fingering, slide work, and pluck-strumming are constantly changing in an inventive way. He can make one guitar sound overdubbed!
Most of the tracks on “The Grounds Keepers” are variations on I-IV-V blues chord progressions, without being conventional or static. These are *original* singer-songwriter selections. Complaint: ten tracks are too few, Dana. Give us more, please — for musical value, not just $$ value.
Thematically, his lyrics are biased toward political outrage and social indictment. Hubbard is a storyteller who makes his point without ramming it into the listener’s brain cells. Music is always foremost; this isn’t a polemic.
Dana Hubbard is a terrific live performer, and a very good recording artist. Either way, it’s worth hearing him just for the guitar playing, so his vocals are a bonus. Double-thumb picking style is his foundation. Two favorites are “Woody’s Guitar,” the first song, and “Time Twister,” an instrumental that is the final track on “The Grounds Keepers.”
Seek out Dana Hubbard and his music. Tell him Nemo sent you.
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