Jim Stringer & the AM Band
On the Radio (Music Room)
Gawd love Stella. The Carousel Lounge’s feisty, red-haired waitress kicks off On the Radio, Jim Stringer’s second disc, in inimitable Stella style with one of her patented intros, which only makes sense since the Austin set-up bar is the AM band’s regular haunt. From there, things only get better with the easy swing of “Cedar Fever” giving guitarists Stringer and Boomer Norman and piano man T. Jarrod Bonta all a little piece of the action. There’s plenty of action to go around, especially on “I Feel Better (Since You’re Gone),” and the tawdry tale of “A Man Who Can’t Say No.” Stringer’s ear for production is head and shoulders above the band’s last CD, while his songwriting packs plenty of wit and his playing makes him as one of Austin’s tastier Telecaster twangers. Covers of Ray Charles’ “Leave My Woman Alone” and Lieber & Stoller’s “Fools Fall in Love” round out the LP. Since radio stopped playing real music a long time ago, Stringer and the boys need to take this smooth-running country-swing machine out on the road so other folks can hear it.
This article appears in April 20 • 2001.