Don't Go Back to Sleep

Album Review

It has never been easy for an artist in the popular performing arts to break through to mass success, and it may be harder than ever now, when the old gateways, such as major record companies, are no longer signing unknowns and working to give them national exposure. Today, it seems, an artist must also be a marketing expert as well. Decades ago, a label might have snapped up folk-rock singer/songwriter Chris Ayer, leading to radio exposure, a national concert tour, and interviews in big magazines and newspapers, all establishing him in the popular mind. But in the first decade of the 21st century, this performer, with his warm tenor, catchy tunes, and earnest lyrics, must release his own discs on a label he calls Another Record Company, and book his own tours. He reflects on the modern world of ProTools and Limewire in the ironic "Roy G. Biv," an uptempo number powered by a slide guitar, and elsewhere with a less humorous tone he examines his motives and his successes so far in a career that has produced a number of recordings and seen him cover quite a few miles. "I haven't lost," he sings in "Awake," "I just haven't won quite yet." That may have to pass for optimism for an artist with a knack for writing and performing infectious music, but who is, like so many of his peers, without the means to get that music out to a larger audience, or rather, to find a means to get that larger audience to pay attention to him.