Eric Lambert's second album, Just The Way I Feel, follows well with its title. It's a feel good roots rock album, but not in the sugar coated sense. Lambert's voice falls just below smooth on the spectrum, giving it a bit of a rough edge that makes the album meatier and the sound less superficial. Citing old school influences like The Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band, Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, mixed with the rock stylings of Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, Lambert's brand of roots rock is a well-crafted mixture of the tried and true and modernized takes on a variety of sounds.
Lambert's sound is solid because his background undeniably is as well. Lambert studied the music of bluegrass pioneers, played with the country rock group Virgil Kane (rubbing shoulders and sharing the billing with names like Charlie Daniels, Alabama and Waylon Jennings) for four years, after which he jumped into an acoustic guitar/vocal partnership with Joe Jordan. In 1991, Lambert joined Chicago's blues and roots band Big Shoulders (again rubbing the infamous shoulders of Lonnie Brooks, Koko Taylor and Blues Traveller). Though he recorded with the band, it wasn't until 1996 that Lambert decided to put his own work into the forefront, releasing Year Of The Gnome, a collection of 11 original songs. The album was critically acclaimed and received airplay on college and independent radio stations throughout the United States, Europe and Canada.
Lambert followed the album's success with Just The Way I Feel, released in November 1999 on his own Skydog Records. The album's sound reflects the versatility of Lambert's background. From the slide guitar driven "Southside Tan" to the bluegrass sounding "Little Town Blues" to the Memphis tinged "What My Love Can Do," the album is a gathering of separate but related styles, melding into something that just feels, well, pretty darn good.
KATE SCHWARTZ
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