Roger Salloom - Hearty  (click on image to watch video)

 9 March 2019

Think of Roger Salloom’s new album Hearty as a survey course on how folk songs and the blues have long served as voices of underserved Americans.

At times, Salloom sounds like a folk troubadour, begging for common sense to make a comeback. This comes across on field-recorded acoustic opener “Not Here Nor Anywhere,” Heartland rocker “Don’t Let My Country Wash Away” and a team-up with Underhill Rose on the Woody Guthrie classic “Deportee.” Each portrays a critical thinker, more interested in freedom of the press and general human decency than partisan saber-rattling.

On other songs, he gets the blues, from a cover of jazz guitar pioneer Lonnie Johnson’s “Jelly Roll Baker” to the pop swing of “Knock Me a Kiss.” Together, these songs represent the enriching and entertaining sides of rock’s jazz and blues predecessors. He also moves forward in the roots music timeline by mixing some rhythm with his blues for a cover of “Shake, Rattle, and Roll.” 

A song that fits neither category, “Haunted at Midnight,” sounds more like a pop-jazz odyssey than a folk ballad or blues side. The standout track captures both the lyrical strength of Salloom’s socio-political commentaries and that unshakable feeling from his bluesy tunes that you’re listening in as a seasoned musician cuts an album with several of his talented friends.

Bobby Moore

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