JACK McTAMNEY
Halfway To Nowhere (self-released)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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Good dogs, hard times and women good and not-so-good provide the fodder for a dozen tracks from the pen of singer/songwriter Jack McTamney. The product of a working class upbringing in Philadelphia, he's got a rare ability to communicate commonplace concerns in poetic language, never dumbing his material down, but never making the listener feel too dumb to understand it.

In terms of style, he's on the rock end of the singer/songwriter scale, pumping out rhythmic support on an electric guitar most of the time, despite the acoustic hobo imagery on the cover. He varies the pace well, though, fitting his instrumental approach to his subject matter with considerable skill. The real story here is lyrical, though. He's a gifted wordsmith, and those words are never buried. One of my standard tests for this kind of album is whether or not there are songs I want to learn, and there are at least a couple here I hope to add to my own setlist soon.

The album should be available through all the usual suspects soon, but as always with self-released material, when in doubt check out the artist site, in this case at www.jackmctamney.com.

Track List:

Into The River * Jeanette * Beautiful Enemy * February's Child * Inches * Utah * Mr. Ford * The Narrow Lane * A Boy And His Dog * Streets Of Gold * One Chord Song * Hell

© 2002 - Shaun Dale