Johnny Never and Andrea Carlson Perform Sounds of the Past

NEWTOWN SQUARE—Music is timeless. Even one-hit wonders continue to live on through radio airwaves. Classical music, centuries old, still hold a place in our hearts and ears. Blues and jazz has taken on many forms in the past 100 years, but it is still as new as it was the day Robert Johnson supposedly sold his soul. Everything from Top 40 to hip-hop stations play blues-influenced artists like Adele and Amy Winehouse. R&B still means rhythm and blues. At on Saturday, Oct. 22, local musicians Johnny Never and the Solar Pimps paired with Andrea Carlson for an evening of jazz and blues deeply rooted in the bygone era of these two genre's initial run.

Andrea Carlson's voice is sweet and stylistic; you can't help but think of scenes where jazz singers perform at supper clubs in black and white Hollywood movies. Her lyrics are quick and witty in the vein of Cole Porter, but her classically trained guitar skills channel Django Reinhardt. She has referred to her sound as "retro jazz" and was also described as "romantic swing."

Carlson's first love is the guitar and started out as a self-taught musician, but later went on to study it in college. She had spent several years performing with jazz bands, but about three years ago started to pick up the pen and try songwriting.

"There are some many great songs out there; what am I going to write?" she asked.

"I actually love the whole writing process so much," she continued. "This current debut CD is really the fantasies of my whole musical ideals and artistic expression all coming together. It's truly the most amazing thing I feel I've ever done."

Carlson's album Driving Myself Wild For You is a quirky homage to songs about love gone right and love gone wrong. Songs like "Love Police" have a playful vibe like Louis Prima, but despite the light-heartedness, Carlson's talent on guitar always shines through. Her sound and persona is perfect for the time period she evokes on stage. Carlson admitted she did not intend to write a jazz album, but she definitely has a connection to this particular music style.

"Its very melodic, the melodies kind of grab you and it makes you feel good. I've always liked that aspect of it–I always did, it caught me right away," she said. "What I think is really special about those kind of songs, and what hopefully mine has, are the lyrics. They say it in a way that is poetic and concise. They take you somewhere. I always think of each song as a journey."

Johnny Never feels blues is organic and as old as humanity. He told the audience on Saturday night that blues was started out in "cave person times."

"One of them [caveman] just can't find the gumption to continue to smash two flints together to make a spearhead. It all seems so pointless because he caught his woman in another man's cave. Another caveman comes up and says 'grunt?' The bummed out one says,  'Ugh!' That's the blues," he joked.

Never has had a few incarnations. He used to play in a garage band with several friends in one of their basements. They "played" regularly for about 20 years. As a spoof of the Neville Brothers, they called themselves "The Never Brothers" because they never played live, finished a song, or really practiced. He knew he wanted a stage name and as he began to perform more and more the name just stuck.

Never’s love and appreciation for the genre and the history is apparent on stage. When he was 14, he heard Son House's "Death Letter Blues" and the song has "haunted" him all his life. Never wants to bring the music that has made an impact on him to others. Much like Carlson, Never sees music like a journey.

"I find that the experience of playing and listening to the blues is releasing—it makes me feel better. The blues is not sad music. Country is sad. The blues is cathartic. And it's a journey because it starts at one place, when I start playing, and takes me to a different place when I stop playing. It is a journey on the inside of course. And that is what the blues started as—field hollers in the deep south, a way for the poor sharecroppers and field hands to escape within themselves as they toiled in the hot sun," he explained.

Saturday's set included a blend of originals tunes and blues classics. The sound was a blend of steel and slide guitars, upright bass, and drums sprinkled with harmonica riffs. Never and the Solar Pimps could drive into a groove and play all night. Forget jam bands like Phish; the bluesmen were the original jam bands.

Never not only made sure the audience enjoyed themselves, but also made sure they understood a little bit of history of the music. Between songs he explained the double meaning behind a lot of blues songs. Never explained how artists couldn't use explicit lyrics in their songs like modern day artists, so they always had to try a little harder to get a "dirty" meaning into their music.

The talent and authenticity of Carlson and Never transported the audience to another time. Saturday evening's journey brought us to Hollywood jazz clubs and southern juke joints. When the show was over, it was 2011 again but the past was still ringing in our ears.