The Tooners' guest guitarist and good friend Jerry Strull just did an interview with Amy Arkwy of Blog Talk Radio. Jerry is a great lead guitarist in the school of Blues Rock that features Eric Clapton of Cream and Leslie West from Mountain and it is in that respect that The Tooners always ask him to lay down some killer licks whenever we record.
These days Jerry is doing a solo acoustic show that showcases both his elegant acoustic guitar arrangements, his very expressive singing and his exceptional songwriting. His songs are heavily influenced by the music with which he grew up such as The Beatles, in that melodies come first. Not only in the writing process, but in importance as well, melodies come first. It seems like it's getting rare to hear a truly unique melody on the radio that wasn't recorded over twenty years ago so Jerry's songs are both a breath of fresh air and a nod to the past.
He writes from a very American point of view and a very male point of view in that a lot of his songs are about men who are having difficulties with their women. To a man a song about a guy telling a woman he's had enough and is leaving or a man who leaves to go to sea or on the road can seem empowering. But to a woman it just seems sad. They don't see a man who is heading off for adventure or because he is doing his duty and sacrificing his love life as noble and selfless, they see it as someone tearing apart a family, deserting a loved one and breaking a promise. Songs of the sea and of the open road are apparently only romantic to men.
With a fifty percent divorce rate in America (higher in California) the sort of subjects covered in the songs of Jerry Strull will certainly resonate with a lot of people and whether they find them romantic or melancholy will largely depend on their own personal experiences. Those are the kinds of songs we adopt as the soundtracks to our lives because they have deep meanings, real emotions behind them and musical arrangements that perfectly match the thoughts and feelings.
Visit Jerry Strull at www.jerrystrull.com and hear his interview on Blog Talk Radio HERE.
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