Chris Ducey - Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest

Essential Media Group LLC

Seeing as the Aquarian Age has ushered me into another year, I find it only fitting that the first review of this new year be of an album that will be turning sixty. 

"Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest" was the first full-length solo effort of relatively unknown singer-songwriter Bobby Jameson, released under the name of Chris Lucey, edited from the man originally intended to record an album of this title until contractual complications made that impossible, and which allegedly features a photograph of Stones guitarist Brian Jones on the cover. Jameson never had much luck with making a successful music career, being more well known for public disturbances and suicide attempts, having garnered a reputation as an outsider musician. And I would love to tell you about that album, but I didn't listen to it. 

Through some gross error I actually ended up listening to the Chris Ducey album "Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest", which for whatever reason is available on Spotify instead of the cult-classic Bobby Jameson album, which explains why I never heard the song structures similar to that of the ones on Love's album, "Forever Changes" that Jameson is so praised for. But I digress the show must go on, and so I give you my review nonetheless: 

The Chris Ducey version of "Songs of Protest" is a pure folk album reminiscent of early Phil Ochs right down to the letter. The sound of jangle pop guitars, downcast and resistant voices, and Arcadian images is consistent throughout. A pale warm sunglow cast over ice and snow. Occasionally the songs grow sharper edges, and the themes of inequality, competition and the generation gap make this a heavily pessimistic album. 

The songwriting, though typical of early folk revival songs, has the special ability to weigh particularly heavy on your conscience even through the most mild-mannered of words, and the more overtly political tunes make good use of their place on the album. The stripped back production, consisting only of vocals and guitars, gives the album a much more personal and direct feel, while the standard anti-American criticisms permeate not just through the lyrics but through the rich voice tattered with negative tones, the echoey sound that makes it seem like it was recorded in an elevator shaft, and simplistic guitar pickings and stylings. 

Listening to "Songs of Protest", I can picture myself sitting in the back of a Greenwich Village coffeehouse late at night. I can feel the claustrophobic atmosphere, smell whatever people are smoking, and picture Ducey sitting on a stool on something that barely qualifies as a stage, idly strumming his guitar and hoping that somebody will notice. And I don't even care that I put on the wrong record. 

Rating: 5/5