Jackie Greene - Giving Up The Ghost (2008)

Some time before Jackie Greene released Giving Up the Ghost, he declared that he wanted a Top Ten hit. "I want a big song," he told an interviewer, adding "You're not a musician because you want to starve." There's no reason Greene shouldn't have that Top Ten as his talents are manifold -- as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist he's prodigiously gifted. But thus far that mainstream success has eluded him, and there's even been something of a backlash against him among the rockist cognoscenti, a rarity for an artist who has yet to truly break out. Giving Up the Ghost illustrates both why some are skeptical and why others can't seem to lavish enough praise on him. Giving Up the Ghost follows three albums for the small Dig label and one for the larger Verve Forecast, and like those others, it's got riches to spare. Greene's writing has become more complex, both emotionally and structurally, without becoming verbose. He's meticulous and broad in his scope, drawing from numerous streams without being derivative: he has been compared to many of the greats (yes, even Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen), but those comparisons are neither fair nor necessary -- Greene can stand on his own. Working here with co-producer Steve Berlin of Los Lobos, Greene elevates his new material into something super-sized -- not in a bloated, grandiose way, but rather as music that presents itself as important. And that is both its greatest attribute and where it runs into problems. There is no denying that Giving Up the Ghost feels just a tad dishonest, that its makers took perfectly mature, well-crafted songs and overcooked them in the studio with the aim of prepping and Greene-ing them for 20,000-seat arenas. Berlin reaches for the sky when there is no need to, at times actually overshadowing the intricacies of the songs; often the production approaches bombastic.