Scan the press coverage on soul-groove outfit Dirty Streets and you’ll see numerous references to rock, soul, and dirty-blooze touchstones like the Faces, Humble Pie, Otis Redding, CCR and more. Spin Dirty Streets’ records and you’ll hear all of those echoes, plus others—some jazz timing, some acoustic balladry. But by and large, what you’ll hear is a raw, rowdy blend of Motown, Stax and rock—the pure American blood-beat moving through the heart of Memphis groove.
Austin-born Justin Toland (guitar/vocals) found his own musical food early through his father, a classic-rock aficionado who turned Justin on to the Stones, Creedence, soul music and the Stax sound. At 17 Toland moved to Memphis and met Thomas Storz(bass), a native of the city, through mutual friends; the pair found common musical ground and began playing groove-grounded rock with a series of temporary drummers. Andrew Denham (drums), a Shreveport-born drummer and British hard-rock fan, joined up with Storz and Toland in 2007.
The trio began demoing using a basic setup: a single cassette recorder, no tracks, no real separation, just mics on the bass/drums and guitar and vocals live in the room. Without the option to isolate, tweak or sweeten after the fact, Dirty Streets became accustomed to running through a take 40 or 50 times as they worked to get it right, all the way through. By the time they began gigging live, that level of discipline had honed Dirty Streets into an instinctual, responsive outfit. Bootleg recordings of their shows in and around Memphis helped to generate buzz, and established Dirty Streets’ rep as a band whose timing was as sharp as their sound was ragged.
Albums followed—Portrait of a Man (2009), Movements (2011), Blades of Grass (2013), White Horse (2015), Distractions (2018), and their forthcoming live effort Rough and Tumble, an LP drawn from an in-house performance for the DittyTV Americana music television network that is due out July 31st via Alive Naturalsound Records. All of these albums are steeped in the raw rock-soul groove that serves as the band’s taproot, the musical core from which all of its explorations still proceed. And within that core, too, is the element that gives their music, the music they love and play, its unique character.
Rough and Tumble includes eight positively explosive takes from three of the Memphis trio’s previous studio albums, and also features two meaty, revved-up covers by the great Joe South.
Today Glide is excited to premiere “Tell The Truth,” one of the standout tracks on the new album. Coming in hot with a wave Jimi Hendrix-esque guitar that turns into a loose blues riff, Toland sings in a style that feels equal parts Dan Auerbach and cranked up 70s rock and roller. Backed by a steady in-the-pocket beat, he rambles along with little flourishes of guitar before laying into a blistering solo at the tail end of the song. The song is both a faithful rendition of Otis Redding’s classic song and an inventive, bluesy interpretation that feels feisty and modern.
Toland explains the inspiration behind recording Redding’s tune:
“It’s rare that a song connects with me on a level deep enough to make me want to record it, but when I first heard Otis Redding’s version of the song, I knew I wanted to cover it. It seemed so natural to play that our personal arrangement of it just flowed out in a natural way. The style that came through on the Otis Redding version was definitely the definitive sound of Booker T and the MGs as the backing band. Instead of trying to imitate that, we just tried to get the same feel on it. “
LISTEN:
Dirty Streets’ Rough and Tumble will be released on limited vinyl, CD and digital & streaming platforms on July 31st via Alive Naturalsound Records.
Website: https://dirtystreetsmusic.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedirtystreets
Photo credit: Bob Bayne
