DAVE'S DIARY - 4 AUGUST 2014 - JARED PORTER CD REVIEW
2014 CD REVIEW
JARED PORTER
EAST TO WEST (RURAL PRESS).
HEY PORTER – FROM HIGH SIERRA TO DOWN UNDER LOWLANDS
“I bought us tickets to ride/ bound on a train through the night/ our love is too young to fly/ so let's have some fun tonight/ so come with me, we're headed on a train to nowhere.” - Bound To Nowhere - Jared Porter.
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Expatriate American singer-songwriter Jared Porter has cool credentials for country music - he was born in small gold mining town Grass Valley in the Sierra Mountains in northern California.
His dad was raised in the Appalachians and his mother the desert valley of Mesa Arizona.
But don't expect any moonshining music here - Porter wrote six of 12 songs including riveting road odyssey California.
The journey starts in the Golden state and heads to the bayous of New Orleans , Mississippi , Tennessee with pit-stops in New York City , Philadelphia , Arizona , Texas and Colorado.
That would cover a lot of radio markets if this was on sale in Porter's homeland but it's really a universal love song and the woman whom the song's male lead misses is waiting in California .
It would work here - if there was a radio revolution and the myopic moats were leaped in a single bound, or is that sound?
Porter, 26, moved to Australia with his mum at 15 and yearns for those distant towns on Route 66 and beyond.
It's no surprise his parents named him after famed composer-songwriter Cole Porter - not Porter Wagoner.
The 35 th Star Maker winner extols love of the open road and disdain for inside day jobs on debut single Under The Sun and hedonistic love dreams in Bound To Nowhere .
Porter proves from radio friendly up-tempo entrée Try It On and Good Love Don't Come Easy he's a master of country pop.
Deep End is an aquatic homage to young love - a similar theme to the couple living on backwoods love, not rural riches, in Kings & Queens and his vehicular vibes of original Try To Show It.
SINGLE SENORITA WITH TRIPLE SHIFT
“Works the night shift to get by/ putting food on the table/ with three kids running wild/ this is more than she's able/ then the drive on the weekend/ heading up through the grapevine/ I can hear mama saying/ don't stop before the finish line.” - Believe In You - Jared Porter.
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Brisbane based Porter exploits gender reversal in the burdens of single female parenting in Believe In You and romantic bliss in his cover of Good Side Of Crazy. The genre has long been a fertile font for donning the gloves for abandoned amorists and victims of domestic violence. Porter follows heartbreak hurdles in Then There's You with a resurrected romance on feel-good finale Pieces - penned with previous expat Kiwi Star Maker winner and duet partner Kaylee Bell. Kaylee, 20, hails from Waimate on New Zealand 's south island and now calls Bathurst home. |
Close your eyes and you could swear you are listening to pioneer expat Kiwi winner Keith Urban.
at's a compliment - this is aimed squarely at rural romantics who tear down the highways and by-ways with open windows of pick-ups, Utes or maybe even sports cars on Highway 1, 31 and Stuart or Newell and smaller blacktops with gums and pine canopies.
Forget the Canapes - give us the grits and gravy.
Producer Andrew Cochran adds his mandolin, bass and guitars to an accessible disc also featuring Porter on piano, harmonica and acoustic guitar.
Travis Toy also injects trad country instrumentation with pedal steel guitar, banjo, dobro and slide guitar.
The ball is now firmly in the ABC and community radio court after the singer beat West Australian Jonny Taylor, Tori Darke, Damien Agius in the 2014 Star Maker final.
The singer, who did his time in punk and indie bands before changing genres to country, launched his CD at the Hats Off To Country Festival in Tamworth from July 3-6.