Customer Reviews

Zane Lewis

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When he was working on the press kit for his first nationally-released CD, someone used the word "eponymous" in the press release.

Lewis read the text, slapped his thigh and asked, "Wouldn't it just be easier to say `self-titled?'"

That's Lewis in a nut shell. He's a no-nonsense artist with a hankering to tell it like it is. He's not slick or over-produced. And neither is his music. "Zane Lewis," the CD, released Tuesday, is full of raucous rock and roll. Zane Lewis, the man, rocks out, too.

From the opening licks of "Southland" to the plaintive "Even a Leaf," Lewis and gives notice that he's got the chops to play with the big boys.

"I made `Southland' the first cut because it sets a tone," Lewis said in a telephone interview. "I like to rock my country."

With a driving back beat and lyrics like this, it's hard to get more country:

Got the stars and the bars out in the front yard
And the old muscle cars on cinder blocks.
When the sun goes down, every guy in town
Can be found at the Wal-Mart parking lot
Talking about football, women and fishin'
A little bit of fact and a whole lot of fiction.
Welcome to the Southland
Open up a beer can
Crank up the Hank, the Haggard an the Waylon
That's how we do it down home.

Lewis continues the hard country rock on "She's Got it Goin' On," "Helluva Time" and "Bad Ass Country Band." This boy knows how to lay it down. The way the back-up singers wail can't help but make you slap your grandmother and say "Amen."

Like any country singer worth his Wranglers, Lewis can turn up the heat in a room. "Come With Me," which hit #61 on the CountryBreakout track, is a beautiful love song, with just a touch of danger hanging on the edges. Who doesn't love a bad boy?

"There's something sexy about two lovers' journey down a road to which neither of you know is headed," Lewis said. "They lyrics and vibe are a sensual passage."

I'll say. Lewis makes being in love sound really good.

The singer/songwriter must have survived the loss of a love, too. "She's Leaving" is about letting someone follow their dreams. He closes the CD with "Even a Leaf," a slow burning ballad that really shows off Lewis' vast vocal talents.

"Holding onto a relationship that's gone bad may seemingly be all that keeps the pain from overwhelming you, when truthfully, letting go is the only comfort you will find" Lewis explained. "On a tree in the dead of winter, even the last clinging leaf knows when to let go."

The over-produced, country-lite artists coming out of Nashville do nothing for me. I'm a country purist. That's why I'm hopping on Zane Lewis bandwagon. He's every inch a hard-core country star. He proves it with every rocked-out note. I promise you.