Customer Reviews

Sweet Somewhere Bound

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jackie's country, gospel and blues influenced folk music continues to evolve here on "Sweet Somewhere Bound", and he produces his best album in his first attempt under his new label, Verve. Jackie's previous album, "Gone Wanderin'", showed promise and had good individual songs, but meshed together badly as an album and suffered from repetition in places.

This album suffers none of these issues. Jackie provides us with 13 tracks on "Sweet Somewhere Bound", all of them listenable and all of them exploring different emotional territory for both Jackie and his listeners.

Jackie is apt in making his listeners both laugh and smile; the album opens with the songs "About Cell Block No. 9" and "Honey, I've Been Thinking About You", both upbeat and cheerful songs that you'll be hard-pressed to dislike.

"Honey, I've Been Thinking About You" is a good benchmark for Jackie; if you're considering getting into his music, listen to this song off his Myspace site or from the samples here on Amazon, as I consider it one of his best and clearly one of the star tracks of the album. Jackie croons about simple love beyond the details of life, and even makes us laugh a bit with lines such as:

Now, I don't really care about your hot-blooded sister
I'm sure there's a man for to love her and miss her
I didn't mean nothing, I just happened to kiss her
But honey I was thinking about you

As talented as Jackie is at making us smile, he's equally gifted with bringing tears to our eyes. Tracks such as "Emily's In Heaven", that lament the loss of a loved one, and "Write A Letter Home", that exhibits the very definition of being lonesome only prove that Jackie's talent isn't prohibited to cheer alone:

Eleven different doctors and not one had a clue
They rushed her to emergency, but there was nothing they could do
They said she had a weak heart, she'd always been that way
I said she just gave too much of it away

Now Emily's in Heaven, and I'm awake in bed
Sometimes how I wish, the Good Lord took me instead
But I guess the good die young and life just isn't fair
But Emily's in Heaven she'll be waiting for me there

Some tracks are better than others, but all 13 tracks provide the listener with something new. There's no filler; if you skip the end of the album, you'll only miss out on some of the best songs on the album in "Write A Letter Home" and "Everything to Me". Jackie Greene doesn't try anything particularly unique or groundbreaking on "Sweet Somewhere Bound", as his greatest strength lies in the simplicity of his music. These aren't complicated songs. Instead, Jackie exhibits a variety of emotions as he does what he excels at; making great, listenable music that's simple to understand and invariably gets your foot tapping.

Jackie doesn't try for anything particularly new or different because he doesn't have to; riffs from his blues guitar or notes from his harmonica speak volumes more than many songs. Every song, every note, is packed with emotion and rarely fails to pull you into the stories he tells.

Jackie Greene has surfaced in Sacramento as one of the most entertaining and exciting artists in the area, and I'm personally looking forward to seeing him continue to evolve and emerge. I highly recommend him to any fan of folk, country, blues or heck, music in general. You'll love this guy.

What a treat to get 66 minutes of new music from this talented musician! More fine songwriting and musicianship on this new record, with a richer sound than his previous releases thanks to the addition of synthesizer on a few tracks. I still wish he'd decrease the amount of slow, sad numbers and increase the lively blues tunes he does so well, but I'm still glad to hear anything this guy does.

I took my girlfriend to see Jewel and was blown away when Jackie Greene opened for her. Jackie is an incredile musician but what made me an instant fan was the raw emotion he puts into his songs. It was just him his acoustic guitar and his harmonica, with the occasional piano.
I must say I was disapointed by this record because it is missing the raw emotion he projects when he plays on stage. Who ever is recording you Jackie tell them to allow you to open up in the studio. It should be noted I have ordered Jackie's other 2 records and I plan on seeing him live twice in July so I'm in no way put off my this record. I'm just dissapointed because I've seen and heard what he'd capabale of.
I'm 25 so I dcon't want to hear that only old people like Jackie.
Rock on.

After buying "American Myth," I backtracked to "Sweet Somewhere Bound," Jackie Greene's previous set. I like the largely acoustic folk feel of his music and particularly enjoy his playfulness and humor. Of my two favorite tracks, "Honey I Been Thinking About You" is a churning toe tapper with a catchy melody, "I don't really care about the weather outside & I don't want to talk about national pride; All that I need for to be satisfied is a woman who's nothing like me." The title track also has an amazingly memorable melody with Greene's gentle vocals bouncing reflectively between sadness and hope, "Where will you go when the sun goes sinking? Morning brings a new day to be born." Other tracks like the opening boogie "Cell Block #9" & the haunting "Miss Madeleine (3 Ways to Love Her)" are also excellent. This is a strong offering from this promising songwriter & vocalist. Enjoy!

Pretty stuff- my local alt station was playing the radio hit that got me to digging and found this CD. Jackie's words flow almost like Dylan "I'm fishin' in a wishin' well" is about as well turned a phrase as Jackson Browne's "I was taken by a photograph of you". I hope you pick this up and give it a listen or ten - the deeper in you go, the deeper it gets until it gets you, too. Enough variety to keep the interest of even the short attention span members of your gang.If you listen to "I didn't mean nothing by kissin' your sister, and honey I was thinkin' 'bout you" without a grin then you might as well donate your funny bone to medical science, 'cause you sure aren't using it!

good side:lyrically brilliant, musically captivating, wonderful vocal deliveries
bad side:again, can't find anything too bad to say about this!
standout tracks:honey i've been thinking about you; sweet somewhere bound; everything to me; a thing called rain; seven jealous sisters; miss madeline (3 ways to love her)

This is my first Jackie Greene CD, and based on my reaction I'm sure I will be adding to the collection. Comparisons to Dylan are probably inevitable. Greene's style of songwriting owes a lot to Dylan, and on the couple of acoustic guitar/harmonica driven numbers on this disk you may find yourself having flashbacks. But Greene's arrangements are deeper and more complex and except for the couple of aforementioned songs, fully fleshed out with a full band. Make no mistake, the guy has developed his own voice and isn't simply a clone. Great range of themes here on this disk, too, from playful to songs of lost love, and of a friend who died too young. This guy definitely deserves success, and I hope he finds it!

he makes you happy.....that's the bottom line. he is fun, but not silly........the album is, well, "music to my ears". kind of folksy, rock minestrone soup. this is what an album should be, to be able to hook you the very first time you listen before you know any of the words or even what the hell he's singing about. near perfection!

I saw Jackie Greene last night for the first time. He opened for Big Head Todd and the Monsters, and as is the usual, the crowd was thin before he came on stage with the band. Halfway through his first song, though, people were out of their seats and on the floor dancing and supporting this guy. After the third song, I was at the merch table buying his cd. It's unusual in this town to get the crowd engaged as an opening act. I've seen it happen with KNOWN artists and it's got to be unnerving. Jackie is a rare talent that, yes, like Dylan, has a true feel for the style but, unlike Dylan, can carry a tune that you want to learn the lyrics to so you can sing along. Amazing, yes, and hopefully, we'll hear more of him in St. Louis!

Listening to Sweet Somewhere Bound feels like a solitary walk through grey twilight - beautiful and reflective in all its solitude. Every song on this incredible album has its own purpose and its own feel; it could not be a whole without all of its parts. Surely a perfect album can't exist, but Sweet Somewhere Bound is a worthy challenge to that notion. The spirited instrumentation of "About Cell Block #9", the genuine sentiment in "Write a Letter Home", the amusing satisfaction in the blues tune "I Don't Care About My Baby". The quick, energetic songs will grip you at first, but it's the deeper tunes and honest lyrics of tracks like "A Thing Called Rain" that give this album tremendous staying power.