ALBUM REVIEW: John Leventhal Steps Into the Spotlight for ‘Rumble Strip’

John Leventhal’s visionary musical genius allows him to dwell in a tune, seeing the notes and the spaces in between them, and to create elegant tunes that capture the imagination. After decades of composing, producing, songwriting, singing, and playing for others, Leventhal is finally releasing his debut solo album, Rumble Strip, on which he explores various musical settings across 13 stunning instrumental tunes and three songs. On two of the songs he’s joined by his wife and collaborator Rosanne Cash.

Rumble Strip opens quietly with a haunting little piano etude, “Floyd Cramer’s Dream,” that sets the tone for the atmospheric tunes on the rest of the album. Crisp guitar fingerpicking cascades into a soothing river of comfort and assurance on the transportive “JL’s Hymn #2,” which from its opening notes elevates listeners to a reflective state.

On the spare title track, Leventhal’s guitar lines weave around the tune’s theme, the notes darting down various paths before coalescing once again at the song’s end. The gospel-inflected “Meteor” echoes “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning,” but it’s Leventhal’s funky electric melodic phrasing that keeps the tune lighting up the sky. The ethereal “Marion and Sam” evokes the movements of two lost lovers, while the brightly rendered “Soul Op” percolates in a Memphis soul stew. The jaunty “Three Chord Monte” swings with a New Orleans-meets-cowboy country flavor, Donald Sorah’s horns adding a tasty dimension to the tune.

One of three songs on the album, the poignant “The Only Ghost,” which Leventhal wrote with Marc Cohn, offers an elegiac reflection on the often inexplicable reasons that some people endure and others don’t, even though they travel the same road again and again. Cash wrote another of the album’s songs, “That’s All I Know About Arkansas,” and joins him on vocals on this stirring country blues driven by an unfurling slide guitar solo and a winding electric guitar solo. The album closes with “JL’s Hymn #3,” which plays like the final verse of “JL’s Hymn #2.”

Rumble Strip showcases Leventhal’s creative ingenuity as well as his fluid, eloquent, and understated guitar work. He’s one of the top guitarists playing today, and this album underscores that his playing is always in the service of the song. Listeners can hope that it won’t be long before they get another solo album from Leventhal.

John Leventhal’s Rumble Strip is out Jan. 26 on RumbleStrip Records.