Mel And The Tall Boys, fronted by singer-songwriter Mel Johnston, are billed as \u201cNew York\u2019s hardest-working bar band\u201d on their one-sheet and it shows in these grooves. The group\u2019s debut full-length The Frontier Of Love<\/i> is a collection of distinctly \u201cout of time\u201d tunes, rooted in the postwar pop \/ early rock era of the mid-1950s up to around 1962, that are played with such authority, affection and cheek that it\u2019s easy to get swept up in their very specific and consistently engaging musical vision.<\/p>\n
The Tall Boys are anchored by guitarist\/multi-instrumentalist\/producer\/mixer Kyle Lacy, with Andy Bell and JC Myska frequently featured on bass and drums, plus notable guest appearances by Billy Aukstik (trumpet), Cole Stone-Frisina (sax) and Camelia Hartman (violin). The music\u2014eight tracks composed by Johnston and Lacy, separately and together, and two covers\u2014is full of sass and panache. Mel plays a character here, an early rock era vocalist and frontwoman, and inhabits the role completely, delivering a refresher course in the styles of acts like Peggy Lee, Mary Weiss and the Shangri-Las, Fats Domino and the Ventures.<\/p>\n
\u201cRollin\u2019\u201d kicks things off in style, a fast-slow-fast lounge-y blues rocker with abundant attitude and come-hither flirtatiousness that clearly embraces the traditional interpretation of the phrase \u201crock and roll.\u201d Early Motown rhythms and vocal arrangements fuel \u201cFall A Little Faster,\u201d and then the driving r&b of \u201cBaby Blues\u201d gets frisky again as Mel sings \u201cI wanna swim in your pool \/ I wanna get soaking wet.\u201d<\/p>\n
The title track is somewhat of an outlier (though chronologically appropriate), with an echoey, exotic spaghetti Western vibe in play as Johnston contrasts romantic love with love of creating and performing. The bright, sweet \u201cMake Room\u201d features a rockabilly backbeat behind the romantic notion \u201cI\u2019ll always make room for you,\u201d a nice lead-in for the first cover, the grinding, greasy blue number \u201cEvery Night About This Time,\u201d from the pen of Fats Domino.<\/p>\n
Chuck Berry enters that chat with \u201cRunnin\u2019 Around,\u201d a bopping early rock number, before they switch lanes for the smoky, tip-toeing lounge blues of \u201cDon\u2019t Try To Cover Your Tracks,\u201d featuring trumpet and piano. The album hits a crescendo with penultimate track \u201cThe Breeze,\u201d a Johnston-penned ballad with a big airy arrangement full of longing and drama, accentuated with violin and tambourine.<\/p>\n
Mel And The Tall Boys close things out here with a Randy Newman cover, which sounds surprising, not to mention out of sync chronologically, but doesn\u2019t feel that way at all coming out of your speakers. \u201cGuilty\u201d is a slow and steady blues with typically acerbic Newman lyrics:<\/p>\n
You know<\/i>\u2014you know how it is with me, Baby
You know I just can\u2019t stand myself
It takes a whole lotta medicine
For me to pretend that I\u2019m somebody else<\/i><\/p>\n
Not only is the lyric tonally in sync with the rest of the album, it feels rather meta, given that Mel Johnston is herself playing a role here\u2014a larger-than-life one.<\/p>\n
The Frontier Of Love <\/i>is a terrific showcase for Mel Johnston\u2019s brassy and big-hearted retro approach, with The Tall Boys providing sharp, enthusiastic musical backing. The aforementioned one-sheet also suggests that Mel And The Tall Boys are \u201cNYC\u2019s best kept secret.\u201d How \u2019bout we get to work changing that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":35442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[11167],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-47338","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mel-and-the-tall-boys","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/47338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=47338"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=47338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}