Bill Toms powers through pandemic with new album ‘Keep Movin’ On’
Pittsburgh rocker Bill Toms, having been at this for decades, was pretty set in his ways in terms of recording.
“I know most people record by layering things a lot, but I like to have a rhythm section in the room with me,” he said.
So, in February 2020, members of Bill Toms and Hard Rain convened at Rick Witkowski’s Studio L in Weirton, W.Va., to record the follow-up to 2017’s “Good for My Soul.”
“And we did like one session and then everything shut down,” Toms said.
The sessions were scrapped right along with the live itinerary for the gritty barrock band the singer-guitarist formed while a member of the Houserockers and has focused on since leaving Joe Grushecky’s outfit in 2006.
“I mean, it’s been 40 years of steady gigs, you know?” he said. “I’ve always had a show coming up, I’ve always had a calendar with something written in it. This was the first year where that didn’t happen. Mentally, it’s a little draining. You start to panic a little bit.”
While you’re panicking, you set up a recording space in your home, which is what Toms did in Scott to proceed with his 10th album, “Keep Movin’ On.” What started as a studio session turned into Toms, Witkowski and the rest of the band, plus the Soulville Horns, trading files back and forth.
Toms and Witkowski did most of the heavy lifting, but contributions came from the core band — bassist Tom Valentine, guitarist Tom Breiding, keyboardist Steve Binsberger, saxophonist Phil Brontz, trombonist Steve Graham, drummer Bernie Herr and singer Stevee Wellons — along with Will Kimbrough in Nashville and Simone Masina in Bologna, Italy.
Toms ended up liking the process, he says, “because I was able to take my time and work on the arrangements.”
Witkowski, an ace producer and multiinstrumentalist esteemed for his work in Crack the Sky and the B.E. Taylor Band, pulls off some magic, making it sound like one big cohesive jam. Toms cut the vocals at Studio L, applying his growl to a set of songs about love, hope and determination with that spirited Jersey R&B/soul vibe.
Opening track “I Still Got Love” is an expansive, horn-drenched rocker with Toms singing, “I traveled down to London town/got kicked out of more bars than Shane MacGowan.” “Everybody’s Talking” rides a Latin funk groove reminiscent of the Mavericks with a lively round of piano, sax and trumpet solos.
“Business on a Higher Ground,” a song about a slave tragedy during the Civil War at Ebenezer Creek, captures the haunted atmosphere of recent Dylan. For the closer, Toms covers “American Dreamer,” a ballad by Bubs McKeg, of Diamond Reo and the Igniters, about the immigrant experience.
“The message of the song is our story: immigrants coming to America and working, and, if you’re here, we’re all together,” Toms says. “I think it reflects the times, especially in the last couple of years where this nationalism was running rampant through our midst.”
In the title track, “I Keep Movin’ On,” Toms expresses why he keeps grinding after all these decades. It sprung from a lunch conversation he had with a lawyer friend that brought those ideas to the surface.
“He asked me to explain the music business to him, so I proceeded to tell him about booking gigs and writing songs and how you get paid, the hours of traveling. About a half-hour into this talk, he put his pen down and looked me right in the eye and said, ‘Now tell me again why you do this?’
“And I can’t explain that. I can’t explain it but I just gotta keep moving. I gotta keep doing it.”
“Keep Movin’ On” will be released on Friday. The record release show will be at 7:30 p.m. May 22 at the Syria Shrine Center in Harmar with the Aris Paul Band. Tickets are $20; billtomsband.com.