Music is all about the songs and should always only be about the songs. Sadly these days with such a relentless flow of music from anyone who can hold a guitar and press ‘record’ its a sad fact that the great can get lost in the morass and the ‘merely good’ can sink without a trace to the dark, unseen. Thankfully marketers will always be on hand to step in and get you noticed…
You need that point of difference you see, you need to stand out at the very least to get heard. Quinn Sullivan is 17. He has shared the stage with the likes of Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton and B.B. King and his bio goes on and on for some time in a similar vein. Sadly I’ve read it all before, I read it a good few times a year. Perversely then, that’s why I listened. At 17 this is Quinn’s third album, he’s an amazing ten years into a career – he better be good.
‘Midnight Highway’ clocking in at 13 tracks is really the tale of a transition, sonically it’s almost like three distinct collections of songs, as such appealing presumably to a much larger demographic. The album also sees Quinn involved in the writing of three songs: the nice breezy picked opening and country twang of ‘Eyes For You’; the light melodic ‘Lifting Off’ whose opening does peak your interest before descending into radio-friendly pop; and the similarly light and rather forgettable ballad ‘Going’. As a writer its a mixed bag in that you can see clearly the sort of sounds that grab his interest, but equally those songs aren’t the ones that resonate most with me.
As I said it’s like three collections of songs, the bluesier songs work best (as you might expect for a writer on a hard rock and blues website). In truth opener ‘Something For Me’ begins things well and ticks a few Blues guitar boxes. With that I’d put ‘Rocks’ which just adds a dab of fun Rock N Roll; ‘Graveyard Stone’ which has the kind of funky, bluesy retro vibe that gets the foot tapping and the wonderful instrumentals – the airy ‘Blue Sky’ and the more vigourous blues wail of closer ‘Buffalo Nickel’.
In between that and Quinn’s lighter offerings the middle ground is held by tracks like ‘She Gets Me’ which is altogether more robust and complex, it still has an accent of the blues but its far more interesting musically, more expansive and far more satisfying… and finally that guitar comes to life! It’s the sort of song that sits midway and just gets it stone cold right, but sadly it stands largely alone. ‘Midnight Highway’ the title track, comes close though, and swells with country influences, it’s in truth a mid tempo jaunt that’s pretty inoffensive, like The Eagles met the Black Crowes in an alternate universe where ‘Country’ was king and they deliberately upped the keys and laid off the guitars. If anything it’s these two that feel most right as a next move.
Some might disagree though, and the poppier, radio-friendly aspect is represented by ‘Tell Me I’m Not Dreaming’: to these ears a light breezy, inoffensive, cliché ridden pop song. Then there’s ‘Crazy Into You’ which has a certain blues laced, funkiness to its nice guitar figures, but which gets tied up and slightly lost in its own glossy chorus. Add to those Quinn’s three contributions and you have the more commercially-aimed side of the album.
Quinn says in the notes that he “had a lot more creative input on this (album) and was more active in writing, so it’s something of a mixture. I didn’t want to completely break away from the blues…” and that really is the crux of it, this is probably the album that sees Quinn following his own tastes – let’s face it the likes of Ed Sheeran, James Bay, maybe even a band like Hanson aren’t a million miles from some of this material here. Part of it of course may be Quinn’s voice, not really gravelly enough for pure blues it finds a safe home in songs like these.
What is most interesting here is the transition from the Blues to lighter fare and how the guitar has mellowed to suit the voice. At times you just want a bit more grunt, but I think we’re travelling a different Highway now…
