Jeff Potter - Great Big Beat (review)
Jeff Potter - Great Big Beat (El Toro; ETCD 8010)
reviewed by Michael Macomber
When Fats Domino sang “The big beat keeps you rockin’ in your seat,” he might as well have been talking about this CD. Jeff Potter’s Great Big Beat won’t just get you rockin’ in your seat — it’ll get you up on your feet and twistin’ in the street. Equal parts Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent, Potter is a tremblin’ boogie woogie dynamo. Bangin’ away at the piano, he hiccups out his raw, gut level rock and roll ditties.
There are no complex social messages or hidden meanings here. Potter is up front and blunt, singing about women, dancing, and the coolness of being cool. His arrangements are appropriately basic, just enough guitar, bass, drums, and keys to make your hips move. “All Right With Me” is a vibrating mid tempo killer, with a simple, slammin’ beat that will wind around your brain and never leave. “Golden Roll” is a strollin’, struttin’ instrumental, leaning hard on those 12 bars. “She’s So Explosive” is a tobacco-chewin’ honky tonk number, featuring a fab guitar solo by Graham Tichy.
Taking time out from his heavy duty rockin’ and rollin’, Potter brings it down a few notches for the tender romantic ballad, “Modern Busy World.” Potter delivers each line with warmth and subtlety, proving he is no one-trick pony. Another ballad, “Some Of The Time,” sounds almost contemporary, like some of Iggy Pop’s more sensitive material. Graham Tichy’s guitar work is, again, fantastic.
A few minutes later, Potter is back to rockin’. He wraps up Great Big Beat with an intensely catchy instrumental, “The Romp,” shaking the house all the way down to its very foundations.
