From the beginning of his career four
decades ago, Garland Jeffreys’ work has been laced with the realities of
his New York upbringing, his African-American/Puerto Rican heritage and
his subsequent unique perspective. Jeffreys assiduously avoided
pigeonholing — and airplay — by cooking up a sonic stew that mirrored
his melting pot environment, randomly flavoring his songs of social
observation and outrage with Soul, Reggae, Pop, Rock and Blues. Although
Jeffreys was given the unenviable “Next Big Thing” tag early on, he’s
been largely relegated to cult status since.
Jeffreys blends the
multi-textured sound of his early albums with his later Rock-centric
releases on The King of In Between, his first LP of new material
released in the U.S. in nearly 20 years. From the infectious Indie Rock
ring of “Coney Island Winter,” the David Baerwald-meets-Curtis Mayfield
noir Pop/Soul of “Streetwise” and the Blues thump of “’til John Lee
Hooker Calls Me” to the Blues/Folk chug of “Love is Not a Cliché,” the
Stonesy bluster of “Rock and Roll Music” and the Graham
Parker-on-a-Reggae-buzz bounce of “The Beautiful Truth,” Jeffreys
effortlessly blows through his style catalog and shows that he’s lost
none of the power or the social consciousness that made him the critics’
darling. It’s rare enough for an artist to conjure up an album with the
kind of power and personality to be considered a career-defining work,
but Jeffreys has done just that with The King of In Between, an astonishing 40 years after his debut. Grade: A-
