Phil
Gammage is a singer, harmonica player and guitarist and although he
currently hails from New York, he seems a bit too rural for the Big
City. Although in a similar vein as Tom Waits, his voice seems to come
from a throat less wracked with alcohol and cigarettes but with a
soulful and somewhat angry (or perhaps spiteful) baritone fueled more by
the booze down deeper, in his belly. A more marinaded and less
shellacked texture. Perhaps this is because he is originally from
Houston, Texas. This is definitely 'right to carry' music. Kevin Tooley
on drums, Frank DiNunzio on bass and backing vocals, Johnny Young on
keyboards and Michele Butler on backing vocals are his band on this
outing and their styles fit perfectly with his vocals as does the production by Kevin Tooley.
Phil Gammage - Arms Of A Kind Woman VIDEO.
The ten song CD 'Used Man For Sale' follows eight solo CDs and songs featured in TV shows and commercials so we know Phil's been around a while. And it shows in his world weary stories of a life lived hard and mean. Predominantly a white man's barroom blues record for listening to while you're crying in your beer and right before you decide to get your gun and go settle the score. If you're not in jail or dead the next day it won't be because the songs on this CD talked you out of doing something stupid. It will be in spite of it. This is the kind of sound that if you're a stranger in town and this is playing over the jukebox when you walk into the gin joint you'd be wise to turn around and walk back out. Trouble's ahead for sure.
A sampling of the tunes on 'Used Man For Sale' include;
Arms Of A Kind Woman - A slow, bluesy, boozy lament with sad, soulful harmonica and tinkling keys barroom piano.
Maybe Tomorrow - Floyd Cramer country piano and Hank Williams style tune with crooner vocals over a relaxed (boozy again) tempo and lyrics about making "the good times last". If this is what his good times sound like I'd hate to hear his down side.
I Beg Of You - Stand up bass into a "love and lost" ballad with a down and out Elvis sounding vocal.
Used Man For Sale - A rousing "life is hard but it's my life" style up tempo still fighting song along the lines of Sinatra's 'That's Life'.
Ride With Railroad Bill - Slow blues about the man who stole his wife, drinking hard and fantasies of shooting 'everyone's who ever done me harm'. A swampy tune with a bit of a 'Poke Salad Annie' vibe.
Although 'Americana' through and through, Phil isn't a bumpkin who's never been beyond the city limits. He toured Europe last spring (2016), had his previous album, 'Adventures In Bluesland' make the 'Best Of 2014' list at Rock NYC and NBT Music (Germany). He's performed live at the CBGB Music Festival in 2013 and 2014, opened up for Mississippi Blues great Robert Kimbrough SR., Little Joe Ayers and Leo "Bud" Welch in 2015 and 2016, and was interviewed in Blues Magazine (UK). Even intercontinental, he released two acclaimed solo albums, Night Train and Kneel To The Rising Sun in the 90s on France's New Rose Records. His commercial soundtrack work has been for A&E, MTV, Biography, Women's Entertainment, Centric and others.
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