Piper & The Hard Times

Good Company

Hard Times Records

At the outset of “Runaround Man” halfway through Piper & the Hard Times’ second album, Good Company, Al “Piper” Green intones in his utterly commanding speaking voice, “Hard Times, clock in.” As if he and his band had not just blown the roof off the joint for the past 25 minutes. But the Hard Times do ramp it up, attaching themselves to that galloping groove like a cheetah on an antelope. Fluctuating between hard charging blues flavored rock, electrifying funk, and deep, soulful reflection, the grooves on Good Company are many, flavorful, and instantly addicting.

The Tennessee-based Piper & The Hard Times are singer Alphonso “Piper” (sometimes “The other Al Green”) Green, guitarist Steve “The Conductor” Eagon, keyboardist Amy “The Professor” Frederick, bassist Parker “Porkchop Funkstick” Hawkins, and drummer Dave “Sexy Boy” Colella. The band received countless accolades this time last year for Revelation, their debut album. It even shot to #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart. That distinction followed their “Best Band” win at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis.

Piper & The Hard Times sure rolled fast with the roll they were on, cutting Good Company in March. Just as Revelation did, the new album features the band enhanced by an assortment of backing vocalists and horn players. The whole shebang steps up their presentation, even after the high caliber Revelation. Every song—all primarily written by Eagon, with Green and Colella the co-writers of several—comes off fully realized and more daring. Leading them, Green radiates flair, style, and soaring power as a vocalist. His roots may be in the soil of blues music, but they are tethered to nothing.

“Good Company” kicks the album into high gear. A party hardy, straight up rocker with a lighthearted beat, ringing piano, and quick shreds of guitar, it has hit written all over it. The Music City soul-fired “Now I’m Loving You” celebrates leaving a “Trouble Man” persona in the rearview mirror, Eagon peppering the rhythm and the conviction with a rock steady burst of guitar.

Green’s recent cancer diagnosis places a sad, ironic pall over the optimistic messages those and other songs on the album send. But triumphing in the face of adversity appears to be in his DNA.

Green does take a different tack on “Tear it Down” with its hardened Tower of Power-like groove. Pissed off, yet taking the high road, he implores in booming voice that a better way exists than having a king run the show. Solid perspective, with nothing in your face, the song is entertaining as hell. Then, with an undercurrent of foreboding blues, “In the Meantime” hits right between the eyes and stings. But in “Turn the Tables,” a recital on infidelity by Green and Eagon by themselves, the music and the wily words resonate with down home blues as real as it gets.

With “Keep it to Yourself,” the Hard Times turn the dial back up to full-on, hook-filled rock, and “My Place” follow’s suit, the working man’s get-down-and-have-a-good-time rocker toughened by a sheen of funk.

But with the final song, Piper & The Hard Times make the most affecting and effective impact. Green uses his voice tenderly to sing “Those Days,” reminiscing about such notions during childhood of getting into the kind of trouble he could walk away from and being sent to a neighbor to borrow a cup of sugar. That level of writing and performance, and with one Mr. Eddie Meyer joining in on sax, takes the song into Springsteen territory.

A standout album of the year, Good Company will propel Piper & The Hard Times even further towards the upper echelons of American roots and blues music bands. With God’s blessing, they will be able to get out and continue to blow the roofs off many, many more joints to come.

Tom Clarke for MAS

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