Bill Bloomer - Bounty (2019)

Bill Bloomer’s latest album, “Bounty,” comes barely a year after his last one, “Jubilee.” But, great talent knows no timetable nor follows any schedule, and, with Bill, the story’s the thing over the course of these eleven originals, along with that distinctive baritone delivery. Oh yeah, all the “usual suspects” are here–lonely folks, folks fallin’ in and out of love, and the down-and-outers looking for the next drink, but Bill gives ’em all a ray of hope for something better down the road.

There’s a whole passel of fine backing players, too. They include producer/guitarist Gar Robertson, Kip and Lisa Mednick Powell, James Pratt, and a host of others. We had several favorites. Leading off, James Pratt’s harp sets the hardscrabble tone as our hero realizes he’s no longer “king of a one-horse town,” as “we’re Doing Things Different now.” Another tale of a down-and-out boxer-turned-stuntman “born to take a fall,” features Myshkin Warbler as the female duet voice, as they hold onto the hope that “the best parts may happen yet, in Our Boat At The End Of The World.” “Hog Leg Stew” and its stories of trick dogs served as the set’s bluesiest cut, with fine bottleneck slide from Gar Robertson.

Nothing, tho, was more fun than the tongue-in-cheek, Southern Baptists meet the Twitter generation “in this age of information,” “Earthly Sensations.” It is set over a horn section sounding as if it is marching down Rampart Street on the way to a Big Easy funeral, and was a hoot from beginning to end!

It takes a unique, visionary songwriter to connect the dots between the “darlings of YouTube,” and the annual return of the swallows to San Juan Capistrano, but Bill Bloomer pulls it off (in “Hard Acts To Follow!), and a whole lot more with the most excellent “Bounty.” Until next time…Sheryl and Don Crow, The Nashville Blues And Roots Alliance.