Little Pieces

Album Review

After four albums fronting the band Sunset Valley and three solo albums, singer/guitarist Herman Jolly hooked up with the veteran rhythm section of bassist Grant Badger and drummer Rob Lloyd in 2006 to support him on his tour promoting that third solo album, Bunker Life, and there was sufficient musical chemistry for the three to check into Jackpot Studio in Portland, OR, and cut an album of old and new Jolly songs that emerges here under a new group name, Little Pieces. It's readily apparent what the musicians see and hear in each other. Badger and Lloyd have been together since their days at the University of Illinois at Champaign, and they make for a tight, propulsive bottom to anchor and drive the more idiosyncratic Jolly. He's still turning out quirky songs, whether paying tribute to a "phone sex queen" ("Smallest Man") or declaring "Stop the world, it's turning the wrong way" ("Stop the World"), and singing them in his high, wispy voice. But the rhythm section makes his music more accessible, both reining him in and giving him something to bounce off of. After several tries, he may have found his ideal ensemble.