Sublime Echoes of a Classic Rock Duo
Jeff Burger
Posted On March 17, 2016
About a minute into this album’s first song, I told myself I’d bet a thousand bucks the accompanying press release would reference the Everly Brothers. Too bad it wasn’t a real bet, because it would have been an easy win.
Despite their different last names, Cactus Blossoms vocalists Jack Torrey and Page Burkum are brothers, and their singing bears an impossible-to-miss resemblance to Don and Phil’s. Also, Torrey, who wrote most of the excellent program on this debut CD, shares many of the lyrical preoccupations of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, who penned a lot of the Everlys’ hits. One Cactus Blossoms song, “Clown Collector,” even reads like a follow-up to the Everlys’ “Cathy’s Clown.”
In other words, this isn’t exactly uncharted territory. That said, however, the album is first-rate throughout. If you like country- and rockabilly-flavored pop, tight harmony vocals, and especially, a certain 50s duo, you’re bound to like this, too.
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Jeff Burger edited Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters, both published by Chicago Review Press. His third book for the same publisher will be available November 1, 2016. His website, byjeffburger.com, contains more than four decades’ worth of music reviews and commentary.
