01 Rockola

Rockola

A rockola is a jukebox — the Rock-Ola name became the word for the machine itself across a good part of the country. It is a deliberate way to open a record: the first thing you hear is a nod to the box in the corner of the bar that everybody fed quarters into, and to the whole tradition of songs written to be played on one.

Track one sets the terms for everything after it. This is country rock with the guitar up front and a voice that never needed a microphone to be heard.

Stormy — John B. Wells on vocals and guitar.

Long before the Caravan, the voice that carries the broadcast was doing something else with itself. Stormy is a country rock record written and sung by John B. Wells — he wrote every song on it but one, and the arrangements are the work of someone who has spent a career listening to how sound is put together.

It is worth remembering what that career actually was. This is the man whose voice carried Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter and F-22 Raptor projects, national film trailers and museum exhibits — work that collected Emmy, Clio and Marconi awards. A composer, musician, writer, actor, martial arts instructor and aviator, described on his own site as a Renaissance man who savours the pursuit of knowledge from the arcane to the esoteric. The record is one more room in that house.

Every song is a Wells original except “You Don't Bring Me Flowers.” The album button adds all fifteen downloads to your cart at the single-track price; buy any one of them on its own instead if you would rather.