Kiss On the Breeze (Blind Nello, 2001)
Kevin Deal
Reviewed by Robert Wooldridge
Deal is equally skilled at using both sentiment and humor without going overboard with either. In "My Father's Redneck" Deal tells of his father's dislike for hippies, his own dalliance with long hair and rock and roll, then realizes that like his dad he has a level of disdain for the music of the younger generation as he blasts "that Marilyn Manson scum."
With "Day the Blues Cried" Deal tells of the effect of the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan on himself and the Texas music scene ("a Texas flood of tears from all eyes"), and producer Lloyd Maines salutes Vaughan with some bluesy guitar licks."One Good Ride" is a somewhat out of season tale of a hitchhiker who longs to be home on Christmas night but is disheartened as the last truck in sight passes him by, until he hears another truck from behind slowing to stop for him.
The ballad "Phone That Doesn't Ring" is a lonely tune of a man waiting for a call that never comes, and the title track is a Tex-Mex story of a free soul traveling "on some forgotten highway in the state of broken dreams."
Deal is solid throughout.
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