Steve Azar - Indianola
Review By: Kevin Snyder, CSO Contributing Journalist
The story says that you can’t go back home. Bon Jovi
and Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles sang a song about trying to
go back home. Steve Azar has found out that the next best
thing is bringing home to where you are. Azar does
exactly that with his latest album, Indianola.
Born in the Mississippi
Delta, Azar incorporates the musical flavors of the region
into Indianola by creating a record full of soul,
blues, country, and rock. After bursting onto the music
scene five years ago with “I Don’t Have to Be Me (‘Til
Monday)”, Azar has been struggling to find another radio
hit. The long layoff to create his next album was well
worth the wait as Azar has put out a phenomenal CD with Indianola.
The first track on the
album sets Azar apart from most with his good lyrics and nice
mixture between steel and electric guitars. The song in
question is “Crowded” which is a fresh take on the common
theme that the city keeps moving out into the country.
Next on the album is
“You Don’t Know a Thing”, which received some solid
radio play over the summer and had professional golfer as the
star in the music video. It is a good song with a
definite head-bobbing rhythm to it. Written by Azar and
Radney Foster, the philosophical song is about finding
out who you are by going out and trying something
with the hook that you don’t know anything unless you try a
go at it.
One of my personal
favorites on the record is “You’re My Life”, written
again by Azar and Foster. It is a radio hit ready to
happen if released. The song is a straight-forward
approach to love, yet leaves Azar showing his vulnerability by
stating that his love is what keeps him going. Azar nails the
song with such lines as, “You’re my passion, you’re my
home/You’re the hope that I hang on/You’re the wheels that
keep us goin’/Through it all/You’re the second wind I
always catch/When I got no breath left in me.”
“Still Tryin’ to
Find My Way Around” could be a major hit for anyone in
Nashville with some good lyrics and great musical tone and
rhythm. It’s about enjoying life, yet having no idea
where it is going. Nearly anyone can relate to this song
or has been able to relate to it at some point in their life.
Azar cuts a
bluegrass-flavored “Empty Spaces” that focuses on filling
the empty spaces in your heart with God’s graces. Azar
also includes “The River’s Workin’” a song about the
great river providing work for Azar when all the jobs on land
were gone. The song is obviously influenced by Azar’s
upbringing in the Delta.
The album finishes off
with four songs that show off the musical diversity that comes
from the Mississippi Delta with “Prelude” introducing the
Delta blues song “Flatlands” which is a great song that
certainly isn’t very country. The next song is a
blues-rock song called “Bluestone” which features
Steve’s bandleader Jason Young. The song sounds great
on the album and is so good that it could make many country
fans begin to like blues.
The album closes with
“Indianola”, a song that speaks of the feelings that one
goes through as they leave the small town life for the bigger
city. A few minutes after the end of “Indianola” come
two bonus acoustic tracks that are definitely worth the wait.
Azar took complete
control over this album by writing or co-writing every track
and producing the album, and it appears that he knew what he
was doing.
Azar may not be the
most popular singer out there and he may or may not win any awards,
but he certainly deserves more recognition than he has
received. With the release of Indianola, Azar
should open a few eyes and gain a new audience of fans.
Click to order from Amazon.com
