Review: Jesse Dayton ‘The Hard Way Blues’
By Hal Horowitz
“Could have took their advice for an easier life but I guess I never did…I did it the hard way,” sings Jesse Dayton on the opening title track of his first solo offering in three years. While the song isn’t autobiographical, those lyrics can also reference his career.
The past few years have been busy for the man who called a previous album The Outsider, a perfect description of the Texas born and bred musician’s long and winding journey. Although he’s had his share of success on what even he would consider an eclectic and bumpy career path since 1995s solo debut, Dayton likely never expected to be a Grammy nominated artist.
But that’s what happened courtesy of 2023s Death Wish Blues, his successful collaboration with blues rocker Samantha Fish. Still, Dayton’s wildly eclectic mix of roots rock, rockabilly, country, hard rock, blues and punk (what other musician has worked with Waylon Jennings, Brennen Leigh, Rob Zombie and X?) is no one’s blueprint of a path to being nominated for one of music’s most prestigious awards.
Some of those genres are represented on the Shooter Jennings’ produced The Hard Way Blues, a collection Dayton explains is “custom built for bigger stages, not beer joints.” From the raw Delta blues stylings of “Night Brain” (one of the few songs written about the frustrations of insomnia) to the country strains of “Huntsville Prison Rodeo” and the tender singer/songwriter tendrils of “Angel in My Pocket” (about a good luck charm he carries that helped “pick myself back up more times than I’ve been knocked down”), Dayton delivers potent originals with tough, honest vocals making everything sound like a lived-through experience.
The story-song “Baby’s Long Gone,” starts with a folksy acoustic opening, suddenly changing to harder rocking at its halfway point, before returning to unplugged, concluding the account of the one that got away, leaving him with a beautiful child. That’s plenty of territory to cover in just over three minutes. We also get a history lesson on the poignant “Esther Pearl,” a tale of the titular woman who helped Haitian slaves connect with the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800s.
Ending the disc is the gutsy rocking “God Ain’t Making No More of It” as the singer/songwriter/guitarist talks/howls/hollers through various bad situations ending each verse with the song’s title before and after whipping off a searing guitar solo.
It perfectly wraps a set that traverses a lot of territory in just over a half hour. Anyone who has seen Dayton live knows he never does anything halfway, a trait also applicable to these performances. He sticks with the same backing trio throughout, which includes Jennings on keyboards, attacks every song with his booming baritone like it’s the last one he’ll sing, and writes tight, taut tracks (only one breaks four minutes) that explode out of the speakers with fire, fury and occasional humor.
Dayton is finally riding a wave of popularity he always deserved but might not have expected. The swaggering confidence exhibited throughout The Hardway Blues, makes it the release that ought to, after 30 years in the roots rock trenches, launch him to the next level.
Pre-order the album Here
“The Hard Way”
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