Search - Jon Dee Graham :: Summerland

Back in the 1980s, Jon Dee Graham was a member of the legendary Texas roots-rockers True Believers, a nom de plume that turns out to have been a perfect fit. Graham's sophomore release, Summerland, is a rousing 12-song collection of passionate rock & roll that looks a dangerous world square in the face yet still finds reasons to believe. Graham applies his scratchy growl to literate story songs reminiscent of those by Freedy Johnston, say, or Fred Eaglesmith, but unlike those peers, he isn't afraid to surround voice and song with the kind of dramatic and smoldering electric guitars that turn his singer-songwriter moves into grand rock gestures. It's the force of those guitars that lets Graham wade grimly through the "red meat and wreckage" on "Black Box" and still want to "Look Up" at "lightning in the clouds" to embrace this "Big Sweet Life," no matter how scary and unpredictable it becomes. --David Cantwell