Bob Andrews - Invisible Love (rkr-cb productions)

Bob Andrews’ last release Shotgun was a simmering delight of vintage rock and various New Orleans idioms, Shotgun (http://stevemahoot.blogspot.com/2012/06/bob-andrews-shotgun-rkr-cb-productions.html... this earlier review gives you the lowdown on Mr. Andrews and his history with Brinsley Schwarz, Graham Parker and the Rumour, etc.) was a sleeper, a record whose virtues seemed modest at first, but that deepened and impressed with each listening. 


Just five months on, hot on Shotgun’s heels  Andrews and his partner Robin Hunn release the equally impressive Invisible Love.

Invisible Love is a little tougher, a little harder, and a little darker. The template established by Andrews and his co-writer (lyricist/producer Robin Hunn, aka RKR) is more familiar, making Invisible Love’s impact more immediate. The disc release is again accompanied by a corresponding book release. Hunn’s bizarre conceit (the lovers tale is also a lover’s tail, especially in the accompanying book the action is seen through the eyes of Labradors, Guzzard and Mr. Poo) remains intact. You may find it oddly compelling. You may not. In the final analysis it isn’t critical to appreciating her finely tuned lines, her characters passed out on the curbside, messy sheets vision of a relationship in turmoil and transition.

Bob Andrew’s genius is in taming these fevered words and making them so resolutely musical. I suggested in my review of Shotgun that there were moments when I wished his vocals were a bit more venomous, demonstrative or driven. Those moments are fewer here. Instead, I appreciate the cool anguish he brings to a heartbreaker like “Defleured Me.” There’s a wounded tenderness in his delivery of lines like “I broke my promise not to bend to all your insincerity again” that’s musically right and emotionally dead on. And to Hunn’s credit the lyric is a well-toned meditation on the costs of pleasure.

“Defleured Me” has an austere guitar part worthy of Lou Reed, complemented with devotional organ work from Andrews. Imagine Toussaint McCall and Reed collaborating; the song is deep soul beyond any idiomatic definitions or considerations. Not to belabor one song, but “Defleured Me” is one of the most emotionally honest and artfully rendered songs I’ve heard all year.

Much of Invisible Love is devoted to rockers bearing a line of descent from Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis, but as revved up by the Rolling Stones. The title track sounds like an Exile outtake – smoky, dark, propelled by John Mooney’s terrific slide guitar. "Invisible Love" is  followed by “Don't Stop” (a track so Stones-y that the boys from Richmond even have a song so named). Andrews is no Jagger, but there is an urgency to his well mannered delivery that evokes singers like Paul Kelly, another guy who may not project in an exaggerated way, but who sure gets his point across. The sneering basher “She Drives Me to Drink” could use an extra dash of bravado in the vocals, but hey – I am what you call a critic.

A solid rhythm guitarist, Andrews shines especially on the tracks where he shows off a little on the keys. “Where You Gonna Go” is a sly, swampy number, one lover eviscerating the other for lack of ambition. Andrews’ piano trail doesn’t lead so much to the Crescent City as to a vision of Pete Johnson meets Art Tatum. Stop for a moment, and bear in mind - when you listen to Invisible Love you are hearing one of the great keyboard players of the rock era, his comfort with a wide variety of styles and techniques is uncommon. Few musicians could have covered the ground a player like Nicky Hopkins did as a session player, but Andrews is on that short list.

Bob Andrews - Shotgun (RKR-CB Productions)

Rock ‘n’ roll is a brazen enterprise. Ever since Little Richard those who provoke attention seem to get it. Would we have it any other way? After all, the music blasted out of a repressed post-war America with its Willie out and a gap-toothed grin on its mug. Still, the music has always allowed room for those talented individuals who weren’t quite so flamboyant, who perhaps had a measure of reserve superficially uncharacteristic of the music.

Take Bob Andrews - he is a more modest sort. In his storied if under-sung past, Andrews has contributed to some wonderful bands and recordings, chiefly as keyboardist for Brinsley Schwarz and Graham Parker and the Rumour. For the past twenty years he’s been living in New Orleans. Playing local clubs, marinating in the sounds he loves, living life. 

Shotgun, Andrews’ new album, demonstrates that restraint has its place, even in the world of rock ‘n’ roll. And, for that matter, restraint and the ribald needn’t be strangers. Andrews’s smart, idiomatic tunes accompany the words of lyricist Robin Hunn. She knows her partner’s needs well, delivering smart, blues-drenched lyrics that shift sexual personae and demonstrate a wide range of emotion, from the violated to the volatile, from the plaintive to the passionate. Their collaboration extends beyond Hunn providing words to Andrews’ music. The pair worked together envisioning these songs, discussing feel, context, and approach. It’s a partnership that works.

Shotgun is a bracing roots-rock recital that crackles with energy. It brims with Andrews’ astute musicianship and makes virtue of his vocal modesty. Restraint, combined with musicality, can be quite insinuating. Occasionally, with these performances I’ll strain to hear the ghosts of more robust rhythm and blues archetypes. Frankly, the title track might sound, well, dirtier if his pal Graham Parker had sung it; it has a bit of that “Hotel Chambermaid” salaciousness. But more often than not Andrews’ simmering, slyly expressive singing is unerringly right for these performances. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than on “I Knew It Was Wrong but I Did It Anyway.” Sung in the overtly emotive style of a Percy Sledge acolyte it would lose its shamed, but defiant steel. Here, Andrews combines the rock-ribbed reserve of Richard Thompson (“For Shame of Doing Wrong”) with the determined, dogged drawl of Arthur Alexander. On “Doghouse” there’s a bruised, conversational dignity to Andrews’ delivery that suggests the songs of Dan Penn, and Andrews plays a beautiful solo that shows his debt to Garth Hudson.