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'Soul' showcases Toms' other musical side
If you meet Bill Toms, you'll find him to be a very polite guy who speaks in a relatively unassuming, somewhat modest tone of voice.
That's the off-stage Toms. Put him and his guitar in front of an audience, and he's a changed man, infused with the spirit handed down to him by the great rock 'n' rollers.
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Attending a Bill Toms and Hard Rain show is like chugging a Red Bull, without the aftertaste: It's all about energy. But although he can rock with the best of them, the Scott Township resident has another musical side, exploring the folk tradition of Americana with an introspective pen.
He is ready to release "Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul," an album that showcases his penchant for capturing real-life situations and distilling them through often bittersweet but always accessible songs.
While "Spirits" features plenty of acoustic guitar, Bill mixes it up with some heavier sounds. The album opens, in fact, with power chords and energized slide guitar leading into the upbeat "Together."
In contrast is the somber, elegiac "There Was a Time," a duet with Toms' musical partner Tom Breiding, a resident of Peters Township. Breiding produced the album, most of which was recorded at his AmeriSon Studio, and the finished product captures his perfectionist dedication.
"Spirits" features a revolving cast of characters playing with Toms. The full Hard Rain lineup, as it existed through 2007, appears only on the album's sole cover, of the Waterboys' "Fisherman's Blues," and the closing track, "Revelation Shuffle." Both those were recorded at Rick Witkowski's Studio L in Weirton. (You may remember Witkowski's guitar playing from the '70s-era band Crack the Sky and his co-composing credits for the B.E. Taylor hit "Vitamin L.")
Other "Spirits" performers include Megan Palmer, whose violin adds a sense of urgency to the paranoid visions of "No Way Out"; vocalists Jill Simmons and Andrea Pearl; and even Breiding's son, Jack, an aspiring percussionist who lends to the ambiance of a couple of tunes.
A highlight of the album is "It's Saturday Night Somewhere," with Toms' world-weary voice combining with Megan's melancholy fiddle to effectively tell a musical and lyrical story of lost opportunity.
The scheduled release for "Spirits, Chaos, and a Troubadour Soul" is April 15. A local CD release show with Bill Toms and Hard Rain starts at 9 p.m. Saturday at Cefalo's in Carnegie. Opening acts are Erin Sax Seymour and Lorenzo Bertocchini.
