There’s an underlying swoon to the latest chapter in Greg Loiacono’s musical evolution. His new album, Giving It All Away (released August 12 on Blue Rose Music), is filled to bursting with heart-swellers ideal for slow dancing across the kitchen with a special someone or curling up alone to play the same perfect three-minute marvel on headphones over & over.
The album is a small world away from Loiacono’s day job in primo modern rockers The Mother Hips. The smartly carved 10-pack would make young Carole King and Neil Diamond smile with pride at their Brill Building songwriting desks, radio-ready ditties from an era when everyone gathered around the same airwaves, tunes touched by timelessness and fast-acting charm.
A mixture of new songs, revamped earlier solo gems, and well-chosen covers, Giving It All Away glides along so smoothly that its 37-minutes flash by in a happy haze that one readily hits repeat on to continue lingering in Loiacono’s vibratingly romantic company.
Given the new material’s thoughtful studio construction, it was a happy treat for the live incarnation at Michael’s On Main in Soquel, California on August 19th to gently stretch and mold the songs in wholly winning ways.
Loiacono (vocals, lead guitar), Michael Urbano (drums), Scott Ayers (rhythm guitar, vocals), ALO’s Steve Adams (bass, vocals), Vicki Randle (percussion, vocals), and Bay Area veteran Mookie Siegel (keyboards) splashed tasteful colors, wove captivating intersecting lines, and offered a rich backing vocal blend that continually allowed Loiacono to soar up front.
A lot is happening onstage but never in a cluttered way. Everyone served the songs, pouring themselves into their parts, listening to and vibing off each other, accentuating the positive in subtle yet tangible ways throughout. In their capable hands and warm voices, the material breathes deeper, not so much jammed out as finding a fresh, tactile live form. In many ways, this ensemble recalled the super probands James Taylor and Paul Simon took on the road, and it’d be hard to pay musicians a higher compliment.
Loiacono’s mighty falsetto is reaching new, chill-inducing heights with this album and tour, recalling Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons with a wilder edge. Part of why we love vintage Aretha Franklin is because she’s pushing her voice into the red, doing it how it needs to get done not how it’s supposed to be done. Loiacono is hitting a similar stride in this era, the full flourishing of a classic pop rock voice on par with Paul Carrack, Emitt Rhodes, and Bread’s David Gates. That Loiacono’s just as good in concert as he is with the reverb and boost of studio production never ceases to amaze.
The title cut, “Giving It All Away,” is a breezy 70s AM Gold style keeper that got folks out of their chairs and drew them closer. Seals & Crofts would have given up their eye teeth to pen this one. It’s the sort of song that makes one learn the backing vocals to chime in on cue. “Close Your Eyes” delivered similar come hither vibes, a hit single for a world with better commercial radio than ours. Loiacono fully realizes the frustrated soul man inside Phil Collins on his fab version of Genesis’ “That’s All,” offered this evening with a cool Chic-like jam in the tail end.
Other highlights included newly polished renditions of Hips’ staple “Del Mar Station” (a superb showcase for Siegel’s ever-tasty, never showy playing) and “And Not Cry,” which originally appears on Greg Loiacono’s first solo EP, Purgatory (2007), and sounding even more like a great lost Badfinger number.
It wasn’t all swaying romance with some pleasant outbursts of heat and rhythm on Sensations-era “Superscout” rolling directly into Songs From A Golden Dream’s “Away From The Stones.” Tis’ always a pleasure to hear Loiacono shred. There was also a brand new, week-old song minted on this tour that recalled the blues-tinged electric rock of prime Butterfield Blues Band and Taj Mahal, riding the refrain, “I hope we get to dance/ I hope we get to find ourselves” – way groovy in the highly complimentary vintage sense.
Just as it concludes the new album, Freddy Fender’s “You’ll Lose A Good Thing” was the encore punctuation. Fender may seem an unexpected influence but listen closer to Loiacono’s ballads and his echoes are apparent. Arriving at the concert’s end, delivered with an extra scoop of that aforementioned swoon, and handled so gracefully by these wonderful musicians, it was a final pleasure that sent us off into the night on light, skipping feet.
Photos by Andrew Quist
