Parrothead Ramblings

The first thing I wanted to do when I listened to Blue Pearl Paradise was to rush right out and recommend the band for out next big Parrothead Club function. Wow, are they good! Only problem with that idea is that the band I was fired up about is not available for booking. In fact, it's less a band then the collaborative concept of Ed Hill, David Frasier and Josh Kear, three Nashville songwriters who share a love for that niche we like to call "Trop-Rock." They hooked up and put together a top-flight band of musicians to record their work, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Blue Pearl Paradise is the ideal album for listening to while laying around the pool with an ice-cold rum drink. In other words, it's not so much jump-up-and-dance as it is lay-back-and-relax. There's a definite country edge to it, but no more than you'll find in the music of that "Father of Trop Rock," the Maestro Jimmy Buffett himself.

The album opens with its very best cut, "The Only Thing Missing." That's certainly not to say it heads downhill from there, as you are unlikely to find a tune here that you don't like in one way or another. "Sailor Too Far From the Sea" is a song written especially for land-locked sailors like many of us, and will grab at once both your ear and your heart. "Ain't Going Home" reminds me in a way of Jimmy's "The Weather Is Here, Wish Your Were Beautiful," in that it's about a guy who finds the islands enough to his liking he just decides to stay - a dream we have all shared at one time or another. For some pure escapism, try "I Don't Care," and for pure fun, "Motion of the Ocean." "Twelve Miles Out" sounds much like something Buffett himself would have played back in the early A1A or White Sport Coat days.

Just the final four cuts alone on this disc are enough to make it a must-have for any Parrothead music collection, and lest you forget: I said early-on that the first cut is actually the best. Following the recent Trop-Country/Rock success of Buffett and of Kenny Chesney, I'd be surprised if "Only Thing Missing" didn't do well in broadcast airplay. It's that good.

Well, Parrotheads, I can't recommend "Blue Pearl Paradise" highly enough. It sells for only $12, and - get this - two of those dollars go to Save the Manatee. Here's what you do: Take your beer money for just one night, buy this album, and stay home to listen to it. Those big cuddly sea cows are gonna love you, and, instead of washing down Tylenols with Bloody Marys the next day, you'll be breaking off an e-mail to thank me. Excellent production, strong vocals, instrumentals as good as you'll find, and happy manatees. The Crime Dog wouldn't lead you astray.

What the hell, let's have one of those Bloody Marys anyway. Out by the pool. With "Blue Pearl Paradise" playing. Now we're talkin'.

Click here for the Blue Pearl Paradise website.
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