Sound Sculpting with Lonnie Holley

"...we need to transform how we think about any music."  - Lonnie Holley

It's easy to get caught up in the family backgrounds, odd jobs, foster homes, and early childhood chaos endured by Lonnie Holley. How many of us can claim growing up in a whiskey house or having more than 20 brother and sisters?  Certainly, stories and tales must abound from Holley's early life. And while these hardships and mundane circumstances leave a definitive scar on Holley's art, one doesn't need a press sheet to know the troubles and curiosities Lonnie Holley has seen: you only need to listen to his voice.

On, Just Before Music (Holley's first record), Holley opens with the line "looking for all to be render". His voice is arguably unlike anything I've heard. Listening to Holley for a mere twenty seconds is the equivalent to hearing a great storyteller begin and end. You've been entertained, but more importantly, transfixed. You know you've witnessed something significant, been part of something special.

Just Before Music is a unified blend of Holley's voice, lyrics, and subtle music pairings. His voice reveals decades of struggles and concerns. Few could sing along and mark the emotional range Holley strikes. His words, sometimes prophetic and profound, sometimes humorous and oddly curious, resemble the best in life. The songs presented on this record document times of joy, death, solitude, and justice. Holley speaks about what he knows. He never plays someone he is not. This allows Just Before Music to be heard as a biographical document or a personal artifact.

Musically, this album is delicate. Holley plays all the instruments, but never gets ahead of himself. His ear for a righteous beat doesn't morph into a sloppy dance number. The music is simply the glue for Holley's words and voice. All seven songs feature some musically distinctive swirl, clank, echo, or riff that holds Holley's vision intact.

As I listened on my way home from work, I began to wonder if Holley had improvised the entire project or if he had labored over the lyrics and synthesized sounds (the lyrics are improvised). It's not to say that this body of work comes across as primary or even pedestrian, rather effortlessly created. The collection of songs found on Just Before Music feel more alive than anything tweaked and masked in a mixing room. It feels as if I stumbled into a place where someone was creating not out of necessity, rather the freedom to create was available.

The brevity of the first three songs, is a bit misleading. Track one,  'Looking for All (All Rendered Truth)' lasts only three minutes. The gentle bell-like keyboard paired with Holley's yearning tug the heart strings.  Wanting the song to go on is inevitable. 'Here I Stand Knocking at Your Door' expertly follows with a simple drum tap, building drone and organ.  Again, Holley sounds as credible as any blues singer one hundred years prior. Song three, 'Mama's Little Baby', continues with church like, sustained organ. Holley's voice is slightly more blurred and possible toothless when he sings "Plants, and plants, and all kind of places/All those dirty faces/Dirty, dirty faces". This trilogy lasts about ten and half minutes. The following four songs stretch out beyond a hour. If your calendar doesn't yield to that kind of length, get a new calendar.

Yes, listening to all 70 minutes of Just Before Music is a bit more involved than listening to your standard twelve track, 40 minute album. Of the seven tracks, only one extends too far. On 'The End of the Film Era', Holley whispers about satellites, gigabytes, and HDTV. His thoughts about technology are intriguing, and phrased well, but the idea that technology is managing us is old hat. Holley 's stand is certainly original, but the sleepy synthesized music paired with his hushed vocals are Land of Nod welcoming.

The final song, 'Planet Earth and Otherwheres' is as supernatural as the title suggests. Holley asks rhetorical questions about our ways of processing info, harvesting goods and services, and daily concerns of man. It's lengthy existential stuff for sure, but it circles back to Holley wanting answers. Where did it all come from?  Where will it go? Holley wants it all 'rendered'. Just Before Music is a fitting mediation on such.