Bobby Sant
It's just a lonely feeling
Sakuntala Records
Please. Shoot. Me. Having spent my college years surrounded by enough quirky which-way Chapel Hill singer/songwriter folk talent, label , solo artists from The Decemberists, Lambchop, Bonnie Prince Billy to Mirah, I think I've gathered a pretty good knack for who's got it. And who doesn't. Bobby Sant doesn't. He's got a folk singer's voice, I can even hear the cigarette-lungs rasping in-between each line, but one of his many problems is that he's trying so hard to fill someone else's shoes. He sings in a kinda forced, deranged way that makes me wanna gauge my ears out. Secondly, he's a terrible songwriter. The lyrics, for one, are regurgitating cliches and run down the river, line-after-line of uninspired unoriginality. Bob Dylan or Townes Van Sant does not count for inspiration -- titling two songs, "Like a leaf in the wind" and "Stuck on Townes" ain't helping. By uninspired, I mean inauthentic. I don't hear in-between the lines tortured railroad tracks or years of hard-earned cash livin', slavery on the row, and etc.; I hear a regular guy, probably a regular nice guy at that. But lesser singer songwriters have managed to find poetry in driving to the grocery store, finding brilliance in turning a chance or fleeting encounter into a beautiful and gripping tale. Bobby Sant is trying too hard to tell someone else's tale, or he might be trying to tell his own tale, in a skin he looks slightly ridiculous in. Just the way he enunciates certain syllables really rubs me the wrong way, like in track "Rainbow people". I start to get the feeling it could very well be a language barrier or misconception of the radical nature of the blues artists he intends to emulate. I really think he, and any ol' blue revivalist, oughta look deep within themselves and try to invent something new with the tools these forefathers have assiduously sweated and bled over; I am positive Mr. Dylan never had in mind to have so many geezers steal and disseminate so many washed-up versions of being a fucking rolling stone, drifting by, or another fucking song about California -- "It's just a lonely feeling" simply gives the blues a bad name.
- Ann Sung-an Lee
