The Story of My Life

September 5, 2008

Title: The Story of My Life
Artist: Eric Gales
Label: Blues Bureau International (The Shrapnel Label Group)
Catalog No.: BB-2060 2
Release date: April 22, 2008

Eric Gales grew up in a musical family in Memphis, TN, learning to play guitar upside down and left-handed from his older brothers Eugene and Manuel. Gales won his first blues contest at age 11 and went on to release his first record at the tender age of 16 for Elektra in 1991. He has been recording and touring more or less ever since. The Story of My Life, produced by Mike Varney and co-produced by Gales himself, is his latest release on the Blues Bureau International label (a division of The Shrapnel Label Group), preceded by Crystal Vision (2006) and Psychedelic Underground (2007).

Heralded early on in life as an African American upside-down, left-handed guitar virtuoso fielding a hard-driving musical mixture of blues and rock, Gales has most often been compared with Jimi Hendrix, though his influences have also been described as including Albert King, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Cream, and even Eric Johnson. The Story of My Life is promoted as “the next logical step in Eric’s career” and is described as “rooted firmly in the blues.”

That it is, and there is no question that Eric Gales is an immensely talented blues-rock guitarist—his leads range from simply scorching to deeply expressive and his seemingly ingrained feel for melodic rock phrasing and bluesy crunch are amply supported by the endless vocabulary of licks in his palette. Even so, though full of many nice moments, The Story of My Life displays the talent of an artist who has yet to fulfill his potential. Here I think we must turn to the Hendrix comparison both to challenge it and to investigate where Gales might go next on his musical journey. Warning: The following several paragraphs will depart a bit from the standard review, and may begin to remind you of a personal letter to Gales himself (written by a well-meaning—and critical—friend).

Other than the barely skin-deep features listed above (as a reminder—African American upside-down, left-handed guitar virtuoso fielding a hard-driving musical mixture of blues and rock) there is very little in terms of actual performance style that supports the comparison when you dig a bit deeper. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I hear most of this Hendrix-like stuff as surface. This is true even of Gales’ strongest ability—his leads, which tend much more toward a blues-centered idiom than Hendrix’s ever did (especially on this album). But where the comparison most boldly dissolves is in listening to their divergent approaches to the rhythm/lead dichotomy and songwriting. The Story of My Life is one hard-driving blues-rock album, but it is also relentlessly so. There is very little to release one from Gales’ very sterile and repetitive rhythm playing, and so it is difficult to listen to for long stretches. One of the aspects of Hendrix’s playing that made him so distinctive was the immense and complex dynamic range of his songwriting and water-color-like blurring of the lines between lead and rhythm on a single instrument. Gales needs to delve into this division, and explore the pleasures of rhythmic interplay and in-betweenness beyond the pound-and-groove backing track aesthetic captured here. He also needs to delve into the territory of lyric composition. I agree with other reviewers that the vocals could use some polish (so could Hendrix’s), but if Gales were delivering more inventive verses, this wouldn’t trouble me at all.

Gales could breathe more life into his rhythm and, more broadly, his tunes by applying the same approach he used in developing his virtuosic lead palette. By attending to these dimensions of the legend with which he is so often compared, Gales could fulfill the potential that is so obviously already there by doing it in his own distinctive way. He’s already got an interesting original sound upon which to base this journey—I would actually describe it as “riff-based rock of Cream and Led Zeppelin, funneled through an early 1990s Seattle grunge styling, with a scorching blues-rock roots dressing/icing”. (I don’t expect anyone to cut and paste that one).

The letter ends here; now on to those nice moments I mentioned. There are some real hooky tunes here—check out “The Sound of the Electric Guitar”, which is just delicious. “I Ain’t No Shrink” is straight up and bluesy, as is so much of the album; I love the perfectly-placed back-up vocals on the choruses. “Very Educated” and “Cut and Run” are stuffed with some of the best shredding on the album. “Red, White and Blues” begins with a slight nod to Hendrix’s version of “The Star Spangled Banner,” but immediately evolves into a distortion-soaked grungy riff blending smoothly into a soft acoustic guitar arpeggio tune. Could be a Top 40 hit (but richly and intelligently textured—no offense to mainstream pop fans). I agree with other reviewers that the title of this tune is cheesy, but it’s a great song (with one exception—the brittle tone on the acoustic guitar solo, which sounds like it was recorded directly into the board—the jam-out at the end and distorted outro solo make up for it, though). This tune is a nice release from the frenetic energy of most of the rest of the album. “You Ain’t the Boss of Me” is a wonderfully slow blues with some inventively shimmering clean guitar chording to backup. It is dynamically interesting, and definitely stands out above most of the other tunes. The Story of My Life ends with a couple of bonus tracks, one of which, “You Don’t Move Me,” finally allows drummer Jeremy Colson and Steve Evans some expressive freedom to really show their chops – and both are solid players in their own right.

To summarize and end, The Story of My Life features the brilliant lead playing of Eric Gales, a virtuosic guitarist who could well be on his way to attaining a more elusive, and yet potentially worthy goal: virtuosic musician. Good luck, Eric, and in the meantime, when I want some down-home shredding and hard driving rock and blues for the car ride home, I know where to go!

Posted by Anthony Guest-Scott

Filed under: Blues, Popular, Rock, and Misc.

Tags: Guitar music