Music
Jeff Finlin & Clive Barnes
Voodoo Rooms
Rob Adams
FOUR STARS
In his solo slot half-way through the gig, Jeff Finlin’s accompanist and companion on this latest tour, Clive Barnes introduced himself as someone who’s been around for a long time but managed to remain unknown.
This isn’t entirely true, as in certain guitar player-savvy circles the Irishman is spoken of, rightly, with reverence. He’s not a household name, certainly, and the same can be said of Ohio-born, sometime Wyoming resident Finlin, who has had brushes with major labels and film soundtracks but hasn’t reached the audience his talent merits.
This is a talent that can pick up a phrase from a radio interview and use it to create a song that not only stayed in this reviewer’s mind on first exposure to Finlin back in the days when the Bein Inn in Glenfarg was in its Americana-promoting pomp but has endured. Listening here to Finlin and Barnes deliver that song, The Perfect Mark of Cain, and others such as the similarly impactful Postcard from Topeka, it struck me that they must have one of those live recordings in them that can, with a following wind, transform careers.
They make a potent combination: Finlin has a voice that carries a whole lot of ache and other than a certain Randy Newmanesque tone in certain registers, sounds distinctively, soulfully his own; and Barnes’ electric guitar playing – he played acoustic slide and multi-part fingerpicking in his solo spot – adds muscle to Finlin’s melodies and drama to his song structures and characterful lyrics. Jesus Was a Motorcycle Man’s refrain was a particular but by no means isolated example, voice and guitar flying deliciously in tandem.
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