Combining a knack for quirky stories, a multi-octave vocal range and a genre-defying melodic gift, Brunberg opens Sherwood and Annie by setting a place at the listening table with “Step into the Silence” - meditation on hearing and making room for sound. Then he fills the silent space immediately with the poppy Americana rocker “Feel Like Breaking Up” (with the USA), a simple capture of an embarrassing moment in American history. Lest he should be registered as a complainant, Brunberg pivots into the problem-solving funk of “Fortify” - a bop that he and collaborators Sean Badders, Tyrone Hendrix, Steve Berlin and Rachel Taylor Brown largely wrote together one day in the studio when asking the basic question “what should we do in the face of trying times?” The answer is a very funky “fortification”.
“All the songs on this record were written either on my old pawnshop guitar named Sherwood or on this funky old Wurlitzer that has like 100 coats of paint on it, most notably, a bright pink scrolling of the word Annie that I think colors everything that comes out of her.” Brunberg “didn’t waste time overthinking most of these songs; they happened very organically - relatively quickly.”
There’s a song about coming to grips with the inevitability of the culture of the Grateful Dead and it’s music. Another tune called “Pawn Shop Guitar” sounds like it was written by Merle Haggard for Willie Nelson during one of his gritty jazz, mid 70s records. “She’s Got Kids” goes straight to the heart of adulting and loving in situations where there are more than two people involved in the calculus of the relationship.
“This is another hopeful album, in my series of post Covid hopeful albums” Brunberg jokes. “It might be my last hopeful record for a while” he continues, adding “but who knows - I write these songs mostly for me and I might need another round of pep talks in six months or so”.
A handful of guests bring unexpected color to the farthest reaching corners of this album, including Oregon Symphony players, the core of beloved Portland band Quick and Easy Boys, Los Lobos original Steve Berlin, San Francisco‘s Megan Slankard, and a few other notable, gifted guests who pop up when you least expect them. But mostly it’s Jim Brunberg as he is best known, using his home studio to tell stories laced with hope and humor.