Holy Tweet!

Holy Tweet! is the first in a series of riffs on the recent activities of Terry Adams:  singer, songwriter, bandleader, master keyboardist and record producer, long associated with the omni-pop genius of NRBQ, now fronting his own Terry Adams Rock n’ Roll Quartet.

Terry Adams’ most recent CD, Holy Tweet (Clang!), is the kind of pop confection that makes you want to schmooze your way onto satellite radio, and give it heavy rotation play. Dear Little Steven, I hope you’re playing “Never Cop Out,” which garages more than I remember the Q ever doing. Scott Ligon’s beefy, Keefy guitar, Q drummer Tommy Ardolino’s steady bashing and the bratty “oh yeah” chorus stick like oatmeal to the bottom of the pan, which is really the best part. The fact that “Never Cop Out” rocks between two mid-tempo love songs, “My Girl My Girl,” the title phrase doubled for obvious reasons, and “Beautiful Lover,” just makes it pop more. Both of the other songs are gems. “My Girl My Girl” extrapolates the virtues of the Rascals, Turtles and Lovin’ Spoonful, and sandwiched between any of their tunes, would happily join the la la chorus of hits. I know “that sound” was then and this is now but the confluence of Adams’ pop gifts:  shiny keyboards, one-of-a-kind quirks in the musical phrasing and sweet, funny and innocent lyrics, never goes out of style. Try this couplet from “Beautiful Lover” on for size:

I love a girl, yes I love her features

She seems pretty smart, there’s nothing I could teach her…

Or any of the winsome lyrics of “Feet”- yeah it’s weird but not creepy weird-since the boy loves the girl’s feet because they walk her back to him. As Don Van Vliet once said, “Maybe you had a girl like that.” The only cover on the disk is the characteristically left field,  Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald chestnut, “Indian Love Call.” Ligon and Ardolino give it a bouncy swing treatment that allows Adams to sign it with trademark clavinet figures. There’s not a toss-off in the bunch here, and maybe there’s some virtue in delivering these eleven tunes in just under thirty minutes. Anyway, the m.o. behind Holy Tweet is best explained by the auteur himself. As he writes inside the nicely gated CD package:

When the world is quiet

but you still feel the beat

When you can hear a song

in a car horn beep

And you’re loving that song

And even the bread you eat

Just say the magic words…

HOLY TWEET!

 

Oh yeah!