Jeb Loy Nichols
The Jeb Loy Nichols Special

Jeb Loy Nichols? And who might that be? One talented soul, very talented, and also one of the many "rejected" by the major record industry; two categories of artists that, unfortunately, often coincide. A brilliant songwriter with a very distinctive and recognizable style, originally from Wyoming but relocated for many years in Wales, he started to make a name for himself in the early '90s as the leader of the Fellow Travelers, a band he founded with his wife Lorraine Morley, an experience that allowed him to catch the attention of a major, Capitol, which released his first solo album "Lovers Knot" in 1997. The lead single was "As The Rain", a beautiful song, a great video, positive reviews, yet concerning what "they" truly care about (sales), little satisfaction. Probably the style of JL Nichols was, and still is, too "oblique" to capture a broad audience, his refined folk-country-jazzy alchemies are an atypical, elegant, understated "crossover", a compromise that, in commercial terms, hasn't paid off. However, no matter: fortunately, Jeb didn't lose heart and managed to build a stable career, which has reached its ninth album today, which is indeed this 2012's "The Jeb Loy Nichols Special".

This album was released by Decca, a branch of Universal; thus, after many years wandering from one small label to another, it represents a return, albeit a quiet one, to the magnificent world of majors for this brilliant songwriter Welsh by adoption, but who hasn't forgotten his roots at all. "The Jeb Loy Nichols Special" is a mixed album, seven of his songs and five covers, the latter all by more (Merle Haggard, Townes Van Zandt) or less known country artists, and it has a charm all its own. JL Nichols has a smooth, velvety, slightly nasal voice, of great class and captivating charm, able to convey with absolute effectiveness both personalities that harmoniously coexist in this album. TJLNS has a dual nature: suit & tie, champagne bubbles, crooner class, but also jeans and plaid shirt, whiskey, glimpses of rural America. A meeting of worlds that finds its most evident representation in "Country Music Disco 45", an evocative blueasy-western narration enriched by the alternation of harmonica and string interludes, and that's just one of the many delights that this "Special", in name and in fact, has to offer: serenades like "People Like Me" and "The Quiet Life" literally sink the listener into layers upon layers of the finest satin, relaxed melodies, a voice of magnetic charm, purest class. "Going Where The Lonely Go" by Merle Haggard is another very important moment, as well as a great tribute to a song that, in all likelihood, played a fundamental role in the artistic upbringing of Jeb Loy; his version does not reach the absolute beauty of the original, but it is nonetheless a very brilliant, jazzy reinterpretation, entrusted to brass and Hammond organ, a personal reinterpretation, demonstrating great skill in "tailoring" non-original material to himself.

Then there's a bright "Ain't It Funny", with a beautiful soulful crescendo at the end, the impeccable jazz-pop of a sly and playful "Different Ways For Different Days" in the opening, and the somewhat darker, more "dusty" shades. For these latter tones, he relies on covers, hitting the mark especially with "Hard Times" and "Things Ain't What They Used To Be (And Probably Never Was)", sparse and hypnotic the first, more spiritual the second, imbued with a western-cohenian feeling, but he also puts a lot of himself into it, as he demonstrates with "Nothing And No One", short, classic, accompanied only by a steel guitar and "Disappointment", an articulated blues stream of consciousness weaving through twisting, irregular piano lines and a very regular, methodical double bass. In short, a lot of stuff, even literally: "The Jeb Loy Nichols Special" is a collection of diverse sounds united by a common denominator: a golden voice and a perfect smooth operator approach. Warm, refined, charming, the music of Jeb Loy Nichols is something for fine palates... unfortunately. Yes, I said unfortunately: it's not fair that artists like him are so little known, this is not niche stuff, it's popular music made to perfection that could easily be for everyone: who, hearing a piece like "People Like Me" wouldn't immediately start humming it with a blissfully ecstatic air, I wonder? In my perfect world, the limelight, the big stages would be his, not those of the Adeles of the moment.