Lon Eldridge & Steven Troch team up on Cool Iron
What can I tell you about Lon Eldridge that hasn’t already been said a dozen times? He’s a local treasure, one of the most talented and authentic artists in the region.
Lots of folks in the industry have an act or a gimmick and while the dedicated hipster may sneer at such a concept, it’s entertainment after all. There are supposed to be acts, there are supposed to be gimmicks.
Lon, however, is that rarest of creatures in that his persona isn’t a persona, it’s just Lon. It isn’t a gimmick, it isn’t an act, what you see is what you get. And that is rare and, frankly, worth a great deal of respect.
Lon (or “Long” as a flier for a recent gig dubbed him) brings that sincerity along with a turnip truck load of playing and writing talent to his latest release, Cool Iron.
The album consists of nine tunes featuring Eldridge and partner Steven Troch, who provides a masterful harmonica, backing vocals. Troch, whose skill on the mouth harp has earned him an official endorsement from Hohner, also wrote the second track on the album, the very tasty “Sunday Morning Waltz.”
“You Can’t Get That Stuff No More” is the opening track, and appropriately so, since Eldridge’s music is itself a fine example of that “stuff you can’t get no more,” or would be were it not for the fact that he keeps the genre alive himself. A little Django Gypsy jazz, a little big band and swing, a lot of blues, the music is gorgeous anachronism and so true to form that the only the lack of hiss from limited recording capabilities separates it from it nearly century old ancestry.
“Kind Hearted Woman Blues”, “Jack o’ Diamonds”, “Wished I was in Heaven Sitting Down”, and in fact most of the tunes on the album are all masterful examples of classic blues and there’s a reason that is especially noteworthy.
As a genre, blues is the mother language from which so much American music is derived and as such it has been done to death by mediocre pickers. Every kid who ever had a pawn shop guitar and saw the movie Crossroads tries to play it. Many play it quite adequately; few play it in a way that adds anything meaningful.
Fortunately, we are blessed with a handful of bluesmen (and women) in the area who consistently breathe new life in to the music, push the envelope and actually do add something meaningful to the (musical) conversation.
Mark “Porkchop” Holder is a fine example of what I mean, but where Holder brings fire and fury to the table, Eldridge’s mastery of the genre personifies and older era—classical blues if you will—and this entire album beginning to end is a stunning example of that.
On a side note, I can’t help but think a double-header featuring both Eldridge and Holder would blow the roof of any venue that hosted it.
Passionate, yet refined and even elegant, Cool Iron is a worthy and memorable album that embodies the Robert Johnson golden age of blues flawlessly. The album is available for digital download on May 18th, via LonEldridge.bandcamp.com.
That same night Eldridge will be performing live at the Blues Street Café just down the road in Dalton, GA.
While it technically won’t be a release party—physical copies are currently available in Europe, with a hard copy release in the U.S. scheduled for July—there’s no doubt that some of these new tunes will make it in to the set and for the outstanding quality of Eldridge’s live shows, it’s a trip worth making.