San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Gary Clark Jr.
It’s easy to see why Gary Clark Jr. is championed by everyone from
Beyoncé and Barack Obama to the Foo Fighters and the Rolling
Stones. The 35-year-old bluesman from Austin, Texas, offers a lifeline to the rock ‘n’ roll touchstones that seem to be rapidly fading from popular music — wailing guitars, groaning choruses and unabashedly bashed rhythms. On his fifth studio recording, “This
Land,” he even describes himself as a “lowdown rolling stone,” practically securing his place as the musical equivalent of a denim jacket.
Clark is known for carrying the all-encompassing ambition of Prince (he produced and played most of the instrumental parts himself ) with the meteoric punch of Jimi Hendrix (he performed at the 50th anniversary of the Monterey International Pop Festival, which Hendrix played in 1967). Like his previous albums, “This Land” is a bit all over the place. Clark channels Curtis Mayfield’s socially conscious work through the falsetto vocals and wah-wah pedals of “Feed the Babies,” rides a surge of surf guitars through “Gotta Get Into Something,” and takes a deeply psychedelic detour with “Highway 71.” He does tin shack blues in “The Governor,” dives into current events with the title track, and falls to his knees on the R&B-leaning “Guitar Man,” lavishing gratitude on his wife, model Nicole Trunfio: “Whether I’m standing on the corner with my heart in my hand/ Or everybody is listening to the guitar man/ I can’t do it without you.” Unexpectedly, the most intriguing song on the album is the one that stands out the most. “Don’t Wait Til Tomorrow,” tacked on after the first 13 tracks have passed, finds Clark stepping into the modern age by pairing his searing power chords with a sleek rhythm and vocal loop. It’s enough to make you wonder whether his greatest strength isn’t celebrating the past but attempting to push rock ‘n’ roll into the future. — Aidin Vaziri