Jesse Furay Lynch: The Power of Real Love

What makes an album something worth taking time out from a busy day to sit down and give a listen? When it comes to Jesse Furay Lynch‘s self-titled debut album there are many elements of music, production and influence that bring this project together and make it better than your average debut album from a promising new vocalist. And it is certainly worth the 40 minutes it takes to absorb to this engaging country-rock collection of songs about authentic love. The theme that runs through the album is counter to most modern musings of the temporal nature of love and romance. This album is founded solidly on the faith that love will last, endure and enrich our lives.

First, and foremost is Lynch’s voice. Like her father and producer, Richie Furay, she possesses a voice of its own creation-a rare gift of soul and character that comes from deep within. Years in the studio and concerts backing Richie Furay has given her the vocal skill of a seasoned veteran. Like major country-rock vocalists of the past including Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris and Nanci Griffith, she is able to embrace the songs she interprets and infuse each one with its own character, its own unique story. She makes this collection of love songs truly her own.

For Richie Furay(and co-producer, John Macy), this album required the vision of producers with the skill to find the right combination of musicians and songwriters to mesh with the vocal talent of Lynch. Furay and Macy have done a stellar job of production.  Jesse Furay Lynch has clearly inherited his gift of song. Richie Furay, co-founder of two of the most important country-rock bands in music history Buffalo Springfield and Poco, has handpicked an A list of Nashville’s finest session musicians to complement the songs. They include Chris Luezinger, Dan Dugmore(Guitars), Michael Rhodes(bass), Dennis Holt(drums) and Pete Wasner (Keyboards). The musicians bring each song to its own soulful peak as they help to fully realize the potential of the singer and the song.

It’s easy to hear the soulful influence of Richie Furay’s past made contemporary on this project-a true labor of love.  I’ve always maintained Furay is as much a soul singer-songwriter as a country-rocker.  The arrangements on this album are a clear demonstration of this approach. There are clear, blue-eyed soul strains on “Love at First Sight” and “Goin’ Wild For You Baby.”

However, front and center on each song is the engaging voice of Jesse Furay Lynch. She more than matches the field of talent backing her up on this first solo effort. This project, a kind of gift from father to daughter, ultimately belongs to the daughter-as it should be with any gift and the passing along of talent to a new generation.

While Furay produced eight songs on this album, Lynch’s cover of Nanci Griffith’s classic, “I Wish It Would Rain,” brings in Mike Gallivan and Marco Zanzi of The Piedmont Brothers Band for production credit. The Piedmont Brothers Band are an international country-rock band with members in Varese, Italy, North Carolina and Colorado. While one of the members, Marco Zanzi, from Italy, has passed away since this recording, there is a bittersweet warmth to hearing Lynch’s vocal with Zanzi’s banjo backing her up and the blend of his harmony vocal with Lynch’s voice. The arrangement, by Zanzi, re-invents Griffith’s song with emphasis on harmonies and the purity of acoustic dobro, guitar and banjo. Lynch infuses the song with just the right vocal texture.

Vocally, and soulfully, perhaps the most challenging of covers on this album is the Tom Snow classic covered by Bonnie Raitt, “Goin’ Wild For You Baby.” Lynch carries it off beautifully with tenderness and authority. “Girl Like That,” by Aaron Sellen of The Richie Furay Band sets the pace with an appealing love song. “Falling Into Your Love,” by Richie Furay Band’s Alan Lemke is a beautifully rendered country-rock love song that has potential appeal for modern country radio. “Hard Country” a song written by Jack Sundred, is a heartland saga of despair and hope.  Lynch tells the story as the country-rock arrangement complete with fiddle, steel guitar and soaring harmonies run through the song.

Probably most touching of all are the songs written by Richie Furay.  Lynch brings a naturalness to the occasion as she makes each song her own. “Why Baby Why” tells about the struggle to find love in-the- midst of a broken heart. Furay’s “Love at First Sight,” is a true family affair. Written by her father, Lynch embraces each word as her husband, Tom Lynch, capably harmonizes in duet with her. It’s an ideal wedding song, but it is also quintessentially the kind of love songs that have served to make Richie Furay such a fine and legendary songwriter. Likewise, “Satisfied,” allowing Lynch to sing out the joy of finding real love. With tight-harmonies, a restrained fiddle and jangling guitar, it’s as fine a moment of Americana music as you are likely to find today.

The final song, “If I Were You,” is a beautifully reflective song about living each golden moment of life with love in mind and heart. It is just the right feeling of closure performed with a tenderness and affirmation that permeates this song and brings home the album’s theme of the presence and the endurance of real love throughout life

For Richie Furay this album is a loving act of re-generation of a genre he helped to create. For Jesse Furay-Lynch, this debut demonstrates her own vocal ability and identity, even as it confirms her future in the music she clearly loves.