One Foot In—Handmade Music

Probably the biggest deficiency of the vast majority of commercially released music is the material. With the incredible amount of songs that have been written, coming up with new ones that are strong, catchy and not overly derivative is a tremendous challenge. Songbook by One Foot In thankfully is comprised of excellent new material. The added bonuses include adept production, skillful performance and especially harmonious vocals.

One Foot In has been performing around Southern California for nearly ten years, with a distinctive blend that incorporates singer-songwriter material with a folk rock influence, and bluesy-ragtime based songs. Almost all their material includes tight vocal harmonies. One Foot Indefine themselves as a "flexible collection which plays in trio, quartet and quintet configurations." The basic trio is comprised of Russ Lewark on vocals and an amazing variety of guitars; Michael R. Gardner on vocals, guitar and mandolin; and Jeff Newell on vocals and bass. They are joined by Kevin Gore on banjo, keyboards and mandolin, and expand to the full quintet with Clayton Scott on drums.

Songbook features a blend of Gardner's ballads and rockers, Lewark's more ragtime, more humorous choices, and Newell taking one lead vocal, on Bob Dylan's You Ain't Going Nowhere. Lewark's two contributions, 'Cause I'm Man and Creepy Crawlers, feature his growly, blues influenced vocals. Both tunes have a somewhat uncomfortable undercurrent. 'Cause I'm Man is either an indictment of the typical Neanderthal male attitude towards all things emotion or an embracing of the concept of "suck it up, tough guy." The melody is reminiscent of tunes like The Beatles I'm ALoser. Creepy Crawlers chronicles the reticence that some have for the multi-legged segments of our society, and is more overtly humorous than 'Cause I'm Man, but also has a nice element of dread. Cool stuff, reminiscent of Frizz Fuller's work, and that is high compliment indeed.

Newell's contributions go well beyond sterling harmony vocals, the lead vocal on the Dylan tune and rock solid bass work. He also co-produced the project with Gardner, and engineered the project in his professional home studio. Gardner is a long time songwriter who only took up live performance in the 1990s. His work is often folk rock influenced, and on this project runs the gamut from Poor Billy, the story of a missing person that no one is really missing, to Everything's Turning Out Fine, a pop hit co-written with Newell, featuring gospel overtones, and a rockin' electric guitar solo by Newell. Everything's Turning Out Fine also features deft production work and vocals by Steve Wood. The strong lyric and anthemic melody is assisted by a great lead co-vocal with Gardner and Beth Fichet Wood, and Beth provides a full overdubbed gospel choir on the stirring outro. Gore acquaints himself well with tasteful banjo (an oxymoron?), mandolin, and keyboards, with a particularly nice piano solo on Gardner's Roadhouse Piano. Finally, percussionist Clayton Scott never overplays, and adds some French language spice to Gardner's Oo La La.