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Mass masters (continued)


OVER THE PAST DECADE, the original Music City USA, Nashville, has drawn some of Boston’s finest players. At times, guitarist Duke Levine and drummer Billy Beard have all but held dual residency in that city and ours. Among those who have outright relocated are singer/songwriter/producer Angelo Petraglia, singer/songwriter Jamie Rubin, and singer/songwriter/producer Tom Hambridge.

Hambridge may be the busiest. The former leader of the Boston band T.H. & the Wreckage was in Seattle last week when we spoke by phone, producing an album for a Romanian blues artist called Attila. Hambridge is perhaps best known today for producing Susan Tedeschi’s national debut, Just Won’t Burn (Tone-Cool), and writing its most radio-friendly songs, including "Rock Me Right." But that’ll change if he keeps up his current pace. Lately he’s written or co-written tunes for Charlie Daniels, Shemekiah Copeland, Keith Anderson, Delbert McClinton, George Thorogood, Jimmy Thackery, and NRBQ. Lynyrd Skynyrd played his "Sweet Mama" during the band’s pre–Super Bowl show. "I just got a call from them saying it’s time to get together and write some tunes for their next album." And Johnny Winter’s I’m a Bluesman, which he produced, got a Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Album, losing out to Keb’ Mo’.

Hambridge jokes that Attila, who hails from Transylvania, is six-foot-six and speaks like Dracula, but I’ll bet it’s Hambridge who never sleeps. And why should he when, like Hoey, he’s living his dream? "When I hear a band do one of my songs or hear one of my records on the radio, I get that tingle every time."

Lately, Hambridge has been hearing his own voice on the airwaves. Adult-radio programmers have been taking to "Milk and Honey," a tune he wrote with another Bostonian, Bleu, from Hambridge’s new, second solo album, Bang n’ Roll (Under the Radar). The disc ups the ante on his solo debut, 2000’s Balderdash (Artemis), by widening the same rootsy roads. Its 13 songs fuse rock, country, and blues in an appealing way that brings Hambridge’s voice — sweet on the largely acoustic Celtic-influenced radio favorite that’s an exploration of America’s obscured ideals, raspy on the dirty, booze-soaked rant "Cut Way Back" — to the fore.

"What I’ve discovered since moving to Nashville in 1999," he says, "is that it’s really all about the song, and the more I write, the more I exercise those muscles and the quicker and easier they work. The beautiful thing about writing with other people is that you write more than you would on your own and you learn something from everybody. The way somebody else turns a phrase or thinks rhythmically can really open you up to new ideas.

"When it came time to record Bang n’ Roll, I not only had my own songs but a lot of tunes I’d co-written to choose from, which was great. I could really choose the best of everything." Numbers like "Milk and Honey," with its delicate singing, hand claps, and strings, also show a new-found sonic temperance. "A lot of Balderdash was stomping and hard, but now I’m not afraid to take the music somewhere that’s airy and delicate and articulate ideas that are outside the realm of relationships, about bigger things than just our own lives.

"I feel like I’m in the next phase of my journey, going from Balderdash to this record. When I’m producing somebody else’s record, I feel like I need to keep them focused on a theme or a sound. But now, with my own album, I’ve realized I can be free to take it anywhere and still be able to make every song stand on its own merits, regardless of the approach. Some of my favorite records, like Exile on Main Street and Sgt. Pepper’s, are like that."

These days, when he’s not in the studio or co-writing, the multi-instrumentalist can be found on the road, touring behind Bang n’ Roll. Hambridge and his band will open a string of dates for Buddy Guy in March, including stops at the Capitol Center in Concord, New Hampshire, on March 24 and the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vermont, on March 26.

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