Eric Schenkman-Who Shot John? A Review

The guitarist of Spin Doctors released his second solo record about a year and a half ago and it’s not that great or interesting. The guitar work sounds good but when he starts singing, everything really goes out the window. It’s like if John Mayer had never taken voice lessons and just started making sounds with his mouth. Sometimes a voice can wreck an entire record and that’s just what’s happened here. “Locked in the House All Day” is a perfect example of this. Some good musicianship but the vocals just destroy everything good that had already been established.

What you basically have here is a blues record with some really awful vocals. “Lincoln’s Feat” is another example of a song that has some really good playing but horrible vocals. If this had been an instrumental disc, it would have been way more interesting than what we ended up getting. The title track takes on a bit of a ska bent but again the vocals suck and it turns into amateur hour. Just don’t bother.

There’s an interview where he says he’s spent a lot of time playing on the Ottawa blues circuit and in his playing it shows but that’s it. He clearly didn’t pick up his singing voice hanging with these blues cats. Hell, he could’ve picked up a thing or two from Chris Barron, the actual singer of the Spin Doctors but nope. He decided he could do it all on his own. Just have a listen to “Sign of the Times” and “Fortune Teller” to hear the caterwaul screeching,

Not to drag him down as a player, he really shouldn’t be singing. Ultimately, while it’s interesting to see musicians in established bands stretch their wings to do other things, for example, Spin Doctors’ drummer is a great jazz player, sometimes it’s just best to leave things instrumentally.

Grade: D-


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