Gammons offers a winning lineup of good-time rock
If you were to take all the elements that make the annual ``Hot Stove, Cool Music" benefit shows at the Paradise and Fenway Park so much fun and boil them down into a portable format , you'd have Peter Gammons's new album , ``Never Slow Down, Never Grow Old."
Everything from the hail-fellow-well-met good vibes to the palpable twin loves of rock and baseball are present on the ESPN analyst's exuberant debut as a recording artist.
In interviews, Gammons is self-effacing when it comes to his musical skills , but ``Never Slow Down," produced by Mike Deneen at Q Division in Somerville, isn't just good for a recording rookie making a vanity project, it's just plain good.
Just as he does at the ``HSCM" shows, the 61-year-old guitarist-singer, who recorded the album well before his current medical problems, gets by with a little help from his friends, many from the Boston rock community. The Gentlemen and Buffalo Tom frontman Bill Janovitz and keyboardist Phil Aiken serve as the disc's house band and ably help him conjure greasy honky-tonks, blues dives , and gritty rock clubs with style.
The group powers through a spirited rendition of the Clash's ``Death or Glory," in which Gammons truly relishes the biting lyrics , and the writer's own ambling, playful original ``She Fell From Heaven."
Chris Toppin, late of Fuzzy, contributes angelic vocals to a buoyant, Diddley-ized take of Buddy Holly's ``Love's Made a Fool of You," harmonizing nicely with Gammons, whose crusty yelp sounds like a cross between Randy Newman and Pete Townshend.
Practically a whole team's worth of Red Sox add backing vocals to Al Kooper's infectious, go-go powered ``Wake Me, Shake Me," including Jonathan Papelbon , Tim Wakefield , Lenny DiNardo , Kevin Youkilis , Gabe Kapler, and Trot Nixon, plus NESN's Don Orsillo and former Sox pitcher Bronson Arroyo . GM Theo Epstein also chips in with guitar and hand claps, and assistant director of baseball operations Zack Scott lays down some hot harmonica on the mischievous ``Nyquil Blues."
Out-of-town assistance comes in the form of George Thorogood's stinging slide work on ``Promised Land" and Little Feat's Paul Barrere , who adds the same to the sizzling ``Tanqueray."
The album's best contemporary track, the jabbing, Stones-ish ``Cinderella Superstar," was written by Aiken and features Juliana Hatfield on backing vocals.
We'd advise Gammons not to give up his day job only because he's so good at it, but we look forward to the time when he's well enough to return to his night gig too; for a baseball analyst, Gammons makes a pretty good rocker.
Just as ``HSCM" does, sales of ``Never Slow Down," released by Cambridge-based Rounder Records , will benefit Epstein's Foundation to Be Named Later, a charitable organization that provides assistance to a number of Boston-based non profit groups.
