NEW MUSIC
SELECTIVE HEARING | Robert Berman
CHARLIE PEACOCK RIPP + RICE
When Light Flashes Help Is On the Way Songs We Wrote on Tuesdays
When two of today’s most compelling singer/
songwriters team up, it’s double the pleasure.
The album title says it all: Andrew Ripp and
Chris Rice periodically met on Tuesdays to
co-write the songs featured in this collection.
Lead vocals alternate strictly from one song to
the next – no duets, surprisingly. Rice’s warm
baritone, somewhere between James Taylor
and David Wilcox, is untouched by the years
since his 1994 indie debut. Ripp’s soulful tenor
has a slight rock rasp similar to Josh Ritter or Ed
Sheeran. Piano and electric guitar are the tools
of their trade, sometimes backed by real drums
In the 1980s, Charlie Peacock was a tuneful collaborators including Felix Pastorius, Jerry
solo artist. In the 1990s, a much-in-demand McPherson, Jeff Coffin, and Ben Perowsky.
album producer and songwriter. For the last “Jazz” can be a scary word conjuring up either
twenty years, he’s nurtured talent through his ten minute squealing saxophone solos or mind-
Art House and helmed the music department at numbing piano bar noodling. But Peacock and
Belmont University, and recently begun a blog his compatriots steer a careful middle ground,
project, “The Writer & The Husband” with his tuneful yet unpredictable. One track may be a
wife Andi Ashworth. Occasionally in between slow swing beat with moaning distorted guitar;
all these efforts, he has treated the public to another breezes along with a trumpet-driven
new releases under his own moniker. His latest groove. Never heard mandolin jazz before?
project returns to improvisational jazz in the You’ll find some here. It’s fun stuff, crisply
spirit of his 2005 Love Press X-Curio project. recorded and up to Peacock’s usual high
This time he’s brought along a houseful of standards of joyous elegance.
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April 2019
and strings. “Took Your Breath Away” follows
the effective “three slices of life and death”
formula made famous by The Browns’ “Three
Bells” so many years ago. If you’re looking for
autotune or a bass drop, look elsewhere. This is
classic, heartfelt songsmithing about real stuff:
life, love, and faith.
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