Charlie Farren’s rocking sound has matured and grown more sophisticated since the 1980s. While cuts from Farren’s latest album, Tuesday, could have been played on Boston’s rock stations back in the day, some of these songs could find a home on today’s Adult Contemporary stations. The edge is still there, but it’s been smoothed out by a lot of musical growth and likely an earnest desire to reach more listeners.
Farren plays most of the instruments and wrote most of the material, making Tuesday a true reflection of himself as an artist and a human being. It certainly helped to have Anthony J. Resta producing and Karyadi Sutedja engineering the disc to milk every natural nuance.
Title track “Tuesday” immediately pulls the listener into a sorrowful post-relationship world. “Tuesday,” written by Brad Delp, is about the day she left, and every other day of the week is an echo of the initial pain. Farren’s smooth timbre beautifully expresses the sudden shock of someone not being there and the grief that follows. He makes you feel him finding the strength to carry on. Underneath his familiar, strong vocal, Farren strums a hefty acoustic guitar melody in which you can almost picture him pressing down harder on his accent notes. Strings by Cameron Stone create another haunting backdrop for this tale of loss and that extra dimension carries the listener further into what this song is all about.
“Hold Me Down And Love Me” moves assertively forward with the old Farren rock and roll swagger. The infectious beat Farren lays down and the electric guitar phrase he presses out are full of cool vibes and musical zest. There is a jazzy freedom and a smoky blues tone going on that compel one to tap their toes or snap their fingers.
Speaking of swagger, Farren outdoes even Aerosmith on “That Kind Of Girl.” Chorus coos, thumping and burbling low end, hefty drum smacks, and a large swinging sound that pulls all of those elements together make this a rocker that grabs the ears and never lets go. Daughter Veronica Farren did much to fill out that chorus as backing vocalist.
“Middle Of My Heart” travels along a solid, flowing low end run adorned by snappy acoustic guitar flourishes. Above that, Farren proves a master at putting across an emotion with his voice. He arrives at a plaintive, whispery timbre that he pays out in carefully measured amounts. His acoustic guitar melody approaches the freedom and sophistication of jazz on this number. By the end of this track you know Farren has grown way beyond the local rock singer of yesteryear and become a first rate, world class crooner. He got a little help from his daughter, Veronica Farren, on backing vocals here too.
Things get even better on “Enough Of Blue.” Here, Farren injects tasty guitar licks while singing over it in an equally tasteful self-restraint. He sings with a wholesome, fulsome naturalness when he slows it down and offers his voice in quieter but more effective doses. It’s almost as if Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin were reborn as contemporary rock singers. Farren has arrived at that classy approach of every note being in the right place at the right time with the right amount of feeling, color and tone.
“A Night Away” is another smooth vocal offering with an electric guitar equally expressive as it cries out its meaningful tale, one that most can relate to. A vacancy sign on a lonely highway are the imagery this song uses to set the mood. By the time the weary traveler nears home, you can fully understand what he’s been feeling and his sweet relief, not just because of the lyrics but because of the hope in the vocal timbre and the mesmerizing drive in the electric guitar beneath it. It’s amazing how well Farren can set moods and establish feelings with his voice and instrumentation.
Farren gets into a more funk groove on “Phony Balogna,” a finger snapping, organ flavored, shuffling number that dazzles with guitar and vocal while amusing as it dresses down a man and a woman who are all show and no go. Musically, this song is very much on the go. The smoky organ makes you picture a place where you might run into one of these phonies and the rhythm section keep pushing you to listen more.
“Filling My Life With Love,” co-written with Andrea Surova, shows more of Farren’s tender singer-songwriter side. It’s also one of his songs that could make it on Adult Contemporary radio. Farren is equally at home singing an emotionally honest song solo acoustic. Just as fulsome in this pared down approach, Farren makes you feel the same experience as a full band performance. That is likely why many people are just as happy to see him on stage with just his acoustic guitar as they are to see him up there with his previous, legendary band mates.
If you would like to hear Farren tackle material that sounds ready for FM radio look no further than “Girlfriend Maria.” It comes at you like your favorite song on the radio with its charming catchy piano chords and tight rhythmic underpinnings. Farren belts the hooky chorus with a great feel for what people like to hear when they’re switching the dial until they land on something irresistible. “Girlfriend Maria” is simply an infectious pop-rock song that tugs the ear from beginning to end and you find yourself thinking that they don’t write ‘em like that any more.”
Farren closes out his mature rock/Adult Contemporary masterpiece with “The Shock And Awe Of Love.” Only Farren can take the phrase “shock and awe” away from its usual contemporary use in the media’s coverage of warfare and turn it into something beautiful. Over a bristling electric guitar phrase, Farren emotes with his fulsome handsome pipes, making his listener feel his discovery of the power of love.
Farren has much to be proud of with Tuesday. He doesn’t try to show that he still has it. He effortlessly displays a world class vocal talent and extensive singer-songwriter prowess light years beyond where he was in 1980. He does much more than get us to listen to the rock. He lets it breathe, grow taller, fuller until it becomes something larger than life. This is the kind of music that true artists will always be remembered by.