Jay Hooks has been around – seemingly – for ever. Texas through and through, he has been playing since the early nineties, originally as a sideman in Lavelle White’s band, playing the bars and dives all along the Gulf coast. He has had his own band since ’98, signing originally for Sunburst Records and releasing albums on Provogue and now on Joplin Street.
This album came about from a desire to catch the live sound he – and his fans – enjoyed some twenty years back on European tours. “When I set out to make this record, I wanted it to sound like my live shows from 2001 and 2002-raw, sweaty, and in your face. I was lucky enough that Matt Johnson had toured with me back then, and he knew exactly what I was going for.”
He definitely captures that gritty and powerful Texas sound that we have become familiar with over the years. It isn’t exactly subtle but the songs definitely had me nodding along and his guitar playing has the rawness and absolute funk that made him popular for the years.
The title track is a slow and dark, almost menacing, piece - “Tequila & Bullets was written on a plane from Houston to Las Vegas,” Hooks recalls. “When people drink tequila, it’s like truth serum-you can’t get them to shut up. Their true feelings come out, and the next day they’re like, oh no. Same way with a bullet-when it’s fired, its path tells the truth. It can’t be manipulated to lie”. The track treads heavily and features a terrific solo from Hooks.
Elsewhere, the album opens with another dark groover ‘A Woman Like You’
Then there is the rocker ‘Lonesome’, full of soulful angst over lost relationships
All told, a fine album. No bullshit, very little ‘production’, it stands as a tribute to the sound of a band that is completely ‘together’.
