Randy Weeks - Sugarfinger

If critical raves drove the record charts, Randy Weeks would rightfully be top of the pops. After all, consider just some of the evidence: "An amazing songwriter" (Salon.com). "Smart songwriting and a broad palette of pop music influences" (CD Now). "Amazing musician" (Billboard). "A master of the dark mood and edgy relationships. Cooler than a fucking Eskimo beer box" (Houston Press). Hailed as "L.A.'s secret musical weapon" in the Los Angeles City Beat, Weeks has had a song covered by one of today's finest songwriters - "Can't Let Go," which was the biggest hit on Lucinda Williams Grammy winning Car Wheels on a Gravel Road album - and others featured in such movies as Shallow Hal, Sunshine State and Stuck On You. His live shows have been packed to the rafters with those in the know for five years running, and he's been lauded as "my personal jukebox" by noted music scribe Chris Morris in Billboard. As half of the Lonesome Strangers, Weeks helped jumpstart the fertile Los Angeles 1980s roots music scene that launched the careers of such talents as Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Jim Lauderdale, Rosie Flores and Buddy Miller. And since going solo, he has created what is now three albums whose musical and lyrical richness marks them as modern classics. So if you don't yet already know (and love) the music of Randy Weeks, his latest release, Sugarfinger, is a fine place to start getting acquainted with an artist who is bound to become a personal favorite. Touted in the Houston Press as "easily his most fully realized statement yet," it's a disc that combines the stylistic breadth and ear appeal of classic AM radio with the lyrical depth and musical imagination that marked the progressive FM radio of the early 1970s, yet plays with a contemporary élan that impeccably suits the times we live in. Produced by Jamie Candiloro, known for his work with R.E.M., Ryan Adams and others, it's an album with just about everything a listener might want: sharp lyrics that make both darkness and light utterly palpable, music that grooves as well as glistens with imaginative touches, seductive hooks that transform the tracks into delicious ear worms, and vocals by Weeks that are both sweet yet edgy as well as irresistibly sincere and emotive. A professional working musician since his teens, Weeks has absorbed all that he has heard and played over the years into a trademark personal style with universal appeal that invites comparison to noted artists from across the musical spectrum. "Weeks is one of those walk-softly-and-carry-a-big-stick artists, part J.J. Cale and part Al Green," observes William Michael Smith in the Houston Press, while David Hill notes in Salon, "If Robbie Fulks and Tony Joe White were somehow merged into one person, Weeks might be the result." His musical journey began in the small town of Windom, Minnesota. Stirred by the early singles of British Invasion bands like The Beatles and Rolling Stones, Weeks started out playing drums in the school band. By 16, he was drumming in a country group that played throughout the upper Midwest. "I could play a couple of nights a week and make money, which was cool," he recalls. A six month manufacturing job at the Windom-based Toro Company convinced Weeks that music was a far more agreeable way to make a living, yet also earned him a nest egg to finance a move to the Twin Cities, where Weeks played in hard rock bands and eventually switched to playing guitar. In 1979, he moved again to Los Angeles, initially playing as a gun for hire in rockabilly and blues bands. All the while, honed and perfected the craft of writing songs. Within a few years after his arrival, Weeks had met and befriended singer and guitarist Jeff Rymes. When Rymes suggested they try harmony singing on an old Delmore Brothers song, "it was really natural for us," recalls Weeks, and the Lonesome Strangers were born. The group delved into classic country and roots styles topped by brotherly harmonies by Weeks and Rymes in the tradition of the Delmores, Stanleys and Everlys, but with a cowpunk twist. "It was so kooky that it was kind of successful in Hollywood," Weeks recalls. The Strangers made their recorded debut with a track on the influential 1985 compilation A Town South of Bakersfield, and followed it with the album Lonesome Pine the following year, produced by Pete Anderson, who went on to fame for his work with Yoakam. Garnering critical acclaim and appealing to country fans and rock hipsters alike, the Lonesome Strangers even scored a Top 40 country hit in 1989 with their take on the Johnny Horton song, "Goodbye Lonesome, Hello Baby Doll," from their second album on HighTone Records. In the early '90s, the band went on hiatus after Rymes moved to Georgia, but returned in 1997 with Land of Opportunity, produced by Anderson and released on his Little Dog Records label. Meanwhile, Williams cut "Can't Let Go," which encouraged Weeks to begin concentrating on his songwriting, expanding beyond the roots styles that made the Strangers into California country favorites. "I didn't really write much in the Strangers because Jeff was such a great writer," he explains. "When I started getting into my own thing, I was listening to the big Stax box set, and it opened me up to a broader style. I kinda got into that groove a little more and something more uptown sounding than what the Strangers were doing." His 2000 solo debut on HighTone, Madeline, was hailed as "a terrific roots rock record" (Chicago Reader) and "great, great stuff" (All Music Guide). CD Now dubbed it "a record of quality and sincerity that's as likable as a good friend," while Salon.com said, "It may be the best break-up album since Chris Isaak's Forever Blue . . . Long after the Madeline disc is back in the jewel case, the songs keep playing." Not long after, Weeks began his residency at the Cinema Bar, backed by a regular band that includes artists-in-their-own-right Tony Gilkyson and Mike Stinson. "It's been like my oasis," he says of the shows, in which, as Morris noted in Billboard, "Some of the darkest emotional content imaginable is clothed in melody and rhythm that dare you not to dance." The gig also helped open a new career path for Weeks when film director Peter Farrelly showed up one night, and duly impressed, included a Weeks song on the soundtrack to Shallow Hal. That led to a string of soundtrack cuts in Sunshine State, Stuck on You, Say It Isn't So, Jack Frost, The Ringer and Country Bears. Weeks cut a second, self-released album, Sold Out at the Cinema, that made the Top 10 lists for 2003 of both Morris in Billboard and No Depression co-editor Peter Blackstock. He also co-produced the acclaimed debut album by Ramsay Midwood, Shoot Out at the OK Chinese Restaurant. Now, with Sugarfinger, Weeks has further perfected his seamless blend of rock, roots, soul, blues and pop along with penning perhaps his strongest set of songs to date. "I've been influenced by all these years of so many different kinds of music, and it just comes out as it does. I don't have a calculated way of writing songs; ideas just come as I am writing a song. A lot of times, I get reminded of something, like maybe some old Kinks song or any style of music I was into during a different era. I've been through quite a few eras by now," he notes with a laugh. And as a result, Weeks makes the kind of music that can truly be described as timeless.