103.7 The Mountain Sampler

Novelties to note - 103.7 the Mountain compiles a list of “Emerging Artists” that deserve more than just a surfacing into the world of rock.

Gospel singer Al Green passes his words on “the power of love” down to Louisiana native Marc Broussard in the mint condition cover of “Love & Happiness.” Broussard, whose “Bayou soul” is a melting pot of funk, blues, R&B, rock and pop, reveals his distinct Southern roots by nearly impersonating the sound of the 70’s soulster.

From the inaugural guitar licks to Green’s signature melodic screams, Broussard matches the initial song to give its cover justice. The 25-year-old Broussard belts tunes with the brassiness of a six-piece horn section and the vocal rasp of a ripened veteran of gospel soul.

As heard in his other releases, such as “Home,” Broussard stays true to his Southern pedigree and home-sweet-home with a brash and powerful sound that only a son of the 11 original Southern states could produce.

Also keeping Southern rock resonating is Rocco DeLuca and the Burden in their song “Swing Low.” After their attention-grabbing debut video release “Colorful” which featured a mostly bare America’s Next Top Model contestant, DeLuca and his four-piece band sampled their taste to the world. Son of the touring guitarist for rock originator Bo Diddley, DeLuca shows off his skills on the Dobro guitar, which is rarely heard in pieces not done by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“Swing Low” is one of those such slices of the rock pie and try savoring it for as long as you can. The song, which is either about rough sex or a drunken brawl, is a steadily beaten rock anthem made whole by the peculiar yet intoxicating sounds of the Dobro.

On the band’s Web site, DeLuca declares that censorship killed the blues. “The music I was raised on had heat,” DeLuca said. “The music of today seems so washed out and generic. To get ‘em back, we need to stick the real soul, that punk element back into it.”

Sticking it, Deluca said, is the only way he knows how to play music and does so in “Swing Low.”

Cross Dublin with Mexico and you’ve got yourself a lot of alcohol. Either that or you’ve found the compositions of Rodrigo y Gabriela’s beautiful, fast-fingered acoustic guitars.

After just listening to the first lines of the pair’s dueling solos, you wish you knew how to salsa outside of your living room with the blinds pulled shut. The two call their style “Fusion music” that they describe as “Latin harmonies and rhythms” but with the “structure” of rock.

In their release “Diablo Rojo,” which translates to “Red Devil,” a rollercoaster in Copenhagen, Denmark, the guitars embody the insanity, menacing and unpredictability of such a ride with such a name.

Jennifer Hanson LP

Her face has been slapped over some of the nation’s prime publications from USA Today to a spread in FHM which revealed the girl’s killer legs to her lofty talent. That was nearly five years ago and singer-songwriter Jennifer Hanson is still breaking into the music scene at her own speed.

The LA area native said she’s had many influences growing up and it’s taken her awhile to feel comfortable in her own skin.

It seems Hanson has finally found her niche. As the silent partner to several hit country songs fronted by today’s big names, Hanson has written No. 1 singles for other artists as well as releasing her own beats that are destined to be just as successful.

“Joyride,” the latest release from the photogenic country-pop bombshell, has the buoyancy and color of most country songs. However, it has the edge of a cooped-up small-town girl that is dying to go burn some rubber, make a couple mistakes and use the steering wheel as a drum set while doing 80 down Ventura Boulevard.

Hanson has a line that says it all for this youthful generation’s stance: “Lately I’ve been thinking’/Which could be a dangerous thing/So let’s drive…” The song – like its artist – is a maverick, it’s young and offers a live-by-the-seat-of-your-pants attitude that has been stuffed up by conservative female country artists as of late.

With vocal comparisons to Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Nicks, Hanson has got some big shoes to fill and even though she takes her time in doing so, Jennifer Hanson’s feet are growing by the day.

John Butler Trio - "Sunrise Over Sea"

Sounds like: blues tempo, reggae beat, bluegrass rhythms, acoustic folk guitar riffs, funk breakouts, rock jams and hip-hop freestyles.
Seems like: the new “it” sound.
Looks like: The dredlocked, 30-year-old musical prodigy Aussie also known as John Butler and his acoustic guitar, backed by an upright bass and drummer.

“Sunrise Over Sea” is the John Butler Trio’s first major presence in the U.S. but it is hardly an introductory album. Like the veterans they are, the trio masters 13 elaborate tracks, each with its own original hum branching off of the forest of sound that their music derives from. The album is slightly hypnotic and clearly the real McCoy of the new millennium’s sound.

Most musicians start their popularity outside of America and John Butler, as a citizen of Australia, did nothing out of the ordinary. In many respects, however, Butler’s musical career is anything but ordinary. Butler is considered a musical marvel in Australia where he resides at the top of the charts, is one of the biggest concert draws and is the most successful independent musician on that continent.

What guitarists will love about the album is that the man can play his lap steel, his 6-string acoustic guitar, his banjo and his 12-string guitar all just as well as the other. Butler shows off his talent like a new boob job at a strip joint. Very well.

The key to his popularity is in his regards to his roots. Butler’s crispness comes from his American-born, Australian-raised respect for the belief that all music is related to another, that it all ties together. His soul, his view of his music as an art, is his greatest strength.

Butler’s belief is revealed in his major label debut “Sunrise Over Sea.” The first track, “Treat Yo Mama,” gives a very appropriate introduction to the John Butler Trio. For about eight counts, country guitar riffs start out only to be interrupted by a heavy rock guitar and drums. Once you think that he’s already put two unexpecting genres together, he’s gone and done it again.

Butler’s vocals chime in with chanting, hip-hop sing-speak. With lyrics such as “Only one thing that you should not forget/You gotta treat you mama wit respect” and “You know I am Heaven bound but I'm surely hell bent,” the words alone grab listeners by the ear.

The song that can relate the best to most college bound relationships is “Betterman.” Butler wrote the song about his ex-girlfriend who made him a better person after dating her and although he knew he loved her immensely, he also knew they weren’t meant to be together. Bluegrass chords and blues rhythms with his seemingly signature heavy acoustic guitar and harmonies fill the song with a strange, yet beautiful sound.

In a serious downbeat, Butler’s song “There’ll Come A Time” sings of the inevitability of human actions and that if we keep heading in that direction, we’ll only be destroying our home and ourselves. The song preaches about “Mother Earth” and how the only way she lives is “in my love and in my soul (she’s) running through” in a swift and dark beat.

If you’re searching for that something different in the world of pop princesses and rappers in wife-beater tanks, the John Butler Trio is it. Hailed as the Dave Matthews of Australia, Butler now offers his music to us.

Alexa Ray Joel - "Sketches"

Put a pink piano, a frequently updated MySpace.com account and a long, brown wig on Billy Joel and you’ve got his teeny-boppin’, far from “piano girl” singer-songwriter daughter Alexa Ray Joel.

Only six songs at its full length and decorated with drawings done by a five-year-old, Joel’s debut EP titled “Sketches” can credit its musical feng shui to the same classical piano-training her father took and his support of her talents.

The only child of Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley’s nine year marriage, Joel seemed to pick up more on her father’s traits in not only her musical talent but looks as well.

Despite her parents’ individual fame, Joel has been putting up a struggle to be heard, the same as all up-and-coming artists. Regardless of the fact that she was “discovered” as a star-to-be when she was born, Joel is keeping her own in the music biz, not as the daughter of two great pop culture icons but in her own skin.

Joel is full of sass, wields a falsetto tone and yet has some definite power from behind that piano.

She opens the EP with bouncing black and white keys which seems a little too familiar as far as her last name goes in the song “The Heart Of Me.” Joel, who has just obtained her first real boyfriend (and is living with him in a chic New York apartment), sings about just that. The idea is sweet and almost naïve but can make you think: “Oh honey, you’ve got a lot to learn.”

However, kid’s got spunk. Probably one of the best parts is when you hear this “uptown girl” drop a rather bubbly f-bomb in “The Revolution Song” where she’s pondering when and what went wrong with how the world is today and how it’s made her the “jaded girl” that she is.

Joel encourages a change which seems to be a trend that’s going on with musicians of our generation as John Mayer and Johnny Lang both mention the same thing in their latest albums.

The last song on the EP, “Resistance,” has a Christina Aguilera resemblance to it – as in, slightly over-the-top vocal trills and heavy minor chords backed by a plunging guitar that gives Christina that almost 80’s butt rock resonance. Joel, however, doesn’t whistle the same tune as her peer but definitely flicks the on-switch with the listener.

The song “Now It’s Gone” has a determined Joel singing that “it’s time I make my story heard” and that’s exactly what “Sketches” is shooting for.

The 20-year-old songstress may lack a bit of experience but she can rock the keys as hard as her father. “Sketches” offers a flavor of authenticity, something that music has been starving for since pop was poisoned by bare-all shock-factor artists like ex-Fed Brit and Mandy Moore’s candy.

Alexa Ray Joel gives hope to pop moguls like Simon Cowell and Lou Pearlman that their music still produces artists who not only can sing, but play their own instruments and look classy doing it.