The cover of The Fooler features the iconic City Lights Bookstore on Columbus Ave/Broadway in San Francisco. Rock photographer Jim Marshall, who pressed the shutter, died in 2010, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who opened the bookstore in 1953, left the world in 2021 at the age of 101. And Nick Waterhouse, who used to live around the corner from here, has now left the city where he lived since he was a student and moved to France. “The Fooler” is a suicide note of sorts, the last walk through his San Francisco, composed of his own memories, old R&B and soul singles and books.
The lyrics tell of temptation and deception, forgetting and not being able to forget
The album begins as a film noir on a gray rainy day with a stranger on the train. The lyrics tell of temptation and deception, forgetting and not being able to forget, walks through deserted streets and sleepless nights. The music echoes the (cultural) memory, telling of a time when gentrification had not yet engulfed the city. She has the grandeur of Roy Orbison, the snap of mid-sixties Dylan, the soulfulness of Irma Thomas and the overbearing melancholy of fifties Sinatra.
Of course, since his debut with the programmatic track, “Time’s All Gone,” Nick Waterhouse has never done anything but evoke lost time with nods to classic R&B and soul, and the iconic Jay Gatsby phrases “Can’t repeat the past.” ? Why, of course you can!” to music. But while “Promenade Blue” from two years ago sounded like its approach was being told out, “The Fooler” has a new urgency.
Waterhouse has found a theme that makes the evocation of old times an existential necessity
This may be due to the changes in Waterhouse’s life (moving, breaking up), what he calls a “phase shift” (a new narrative angle he’s found), or the fact that he’s in control of the studio for the first time gave. The producer is Mark Neill, also a man of retro mania, who has worked with JD McPherson and the Black Keys, among others. But “The Fooler” is probably such a masterpiece above all because Waterhouse has found a theme that goes beyond pure nostalgia and makes the evocation of the old days an existential necessity. You can’t go home again.
SIMILAR REVIEWS
Lankum :: “False Lankum” – Spooky good
Folk seized by the spirit of the Thunder Gods
Elvis Presley :: “Elvis On Tour” – King of America
Redundant and fabulous: concert recordings and rehearsals from 1972 on six CDs
Rayland Baxter :: “If I Were A Butterfly”
Elastic swinging like a good rubber band
SIMILAR ARTICLES
The best German songs of all time: BAP – “Ens em trust”
It’s hard to convey that to young people today, but in the early ’80s, BAP pop stars were staggeringly large.
60 years of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”: The bob becoming
In his second year in New York, Bob Dylan achieved a milestone in his development as an artist. With self-written songs like “Blowin’ In The Wind” he finally freed himself from the shadow of his mentor Woody Guthrie.
ROLLING STONE presents: Nick Waterhouse in Berlin
Nick Waterhouse performs at the Privatclub in Berlin on May 2nd.
<!–
–>
<!–
–>