Album Details

• Artist: Tony Lucca
• Album: Solo
• Label: Rock Ridge Music
• Year of Release: 2011
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: carlita on 2012-10-06

Media

For any ardent listener of singer/songwriter (s/s) albums, there are probably a handful of records you can always turn to that fit every occasion. They're like that worn-in sweater (with a small moth hole that you mean to sew), jeans (where you happily find the $20 you forgot was in the back pocket) or shoes (the ones scuffed with worn-down soles from miles of walking) you can always put on, that just fit no matter how many times you've heard it before, during each listen. For me, one of those albums is Tony Lucca's 2011 Solo.  Tony, a Mickey Mouse Club vet (yes, I had cable and watched) and Voice contestant (who just recently signed to Adam Levine's label) released such a collection of bare acoustic songs on two instruments, guitar and piano, proving you don't need gimmicks to be simple, emotionally haunting and persuasive.

A bit country , pop and blues with a voice cutting through the silence reminiscent of Bob Dylan and Sting, the frank songs about devastating heartbreak (so raw you can picture a ripped-out still bleeding heart), rebounding with a third chance at lasting love and assessing one's existence in the vast universe is what the listener will find. "New York City" opens the album, accurately and sadly describing the metropolis that might swallow up outsiders and spit them out, with "hugs and middle fingers everywhere".  "True Story" amusingly gives an honest timeline of his life, depicting, among other things, his time working for the "house of mouse" (where he'd "smile for anyone who held a camera to his face and said "Say Cheese!").

Remaining candid  on "Bad Guy", "Pretty Things", "So Long" and "It's You" ("flame colored teardrops burning my eyes"), Solo sketches a dude who's loved, lost and lived to the tell the tale, avoiding  s/s pitfalls without coming across as insincere or overly sappy . "I Can, I Will, I Do" listen to this album from this "Boy From Detroit" (well, outside of it) and you should too.  

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