James Day - Frequencies (2025)

This album was recorded over a ten-year period at three different studios: Sacred Cat in Sacramento, Sun Studios in Memphis, and High Rye Studios in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania. Accordingly, there is a very long list of performers on the album related to that time span and the disparity of locations where the songs were recorded. In the liner notes, James established that all of the songs “have an occult connection, and the blues and roots genre is the perfect format to explore events beyond everyday physical life. In this life, you may see apparitions, spontaneous auras, experience missing time, or witness something strange in the sky. One thing is for sure, most folks are skeptics, and no one believes this mess until it happens to YOU.”

James plays acoustic guitar and harmonica, provides the vocals and produced the album. The album is his third release in the blues and roots genre. Firecracker was released in 2009, and Southland was released in 2013. James grew up in the coastal southern towns of Biloxi and New Orleans but presently calls Philadelphia home. Regular bandmate Ron Baldwin joins him on organ and electric and acoustic piano. Seventeen other musicians fill out the list of performers on the album.

The album opens with a soulful “One More River” with Paige and Jamie Day providing backing vocals. He says “I got one more river to cross, gonna walk a bridge, gonna go by boat. I might swim across, just go for broke. Gonna need some help from some good, good friends”. Ron’s organ is a standout on the song and Nathan James plays slide guitar. A funky “Work Song” again features Nathan on slide guitar, Dean Shot on rhythm guitar and Michael Tempo on congas with James on harmonica as he notes “Life is too short and nothing to show for it”. He urges “Keep on keeping on”, all dedicated to the everyday working man. “Area Gray” features the eerie sounds of a theremin played by Bill Degnan with Buddy Clark on stand-up bass, Marty Dobson on trap drums, and Michael Tempo on tympani. James again plays harmonica as he sings, he has been “…going round and round in a holding pattern, waiting for something to happen”.

“Ghost Train” features honky tonk piano from Ron as James proclaims “when you feel that rumble, it might be calling just for you. This train ain’t bound for glory, won’t call your Christian name.” “Beatnik Jam” is an impromptu avant garde jam with a beat poetry run citing “I was locked out of this world, the devil traveling by wire stood in my room with eyes like jelly fire, sparks that lit the gloom”. Greg Snyder leads the way on the jazz guitar, Mark Shewchuk on drums, Michael Mean on acoustic bass, Jamie Day on bass clarinet and Paige on sax. “Desert Song” sounds like an opener for a western movie and starts rocking like a ride on a horse with Nathan James on baritone guitar, Dean Shot on tremolo guitar, Steve Kristy on stand-up bass.

On “Unknown Country” James elaborates on the weird things that have occurred in his life starting at “3:30 in the morning, somebody shouts in my ear, I heard it fade in the wee hours as it disappears. Sat up in my bed, ain’t no one creeping in here.” “Shifting shadows like moonlight.” “Tangled Up” features James’ “menacing harmonica” run through a 1982 15″ Sanyo tube amplifier combined with a 1940 8″ Masco tube. Dean on telecaster tangles with Nathan’s rhythm guitar and Ron’s jumping piano. James declares ” I was in love with you, mama. That is where I learned to call your name. Now we are all tangled up in this mess here, never will be the same.” At a low point in his life, James hauled a lot of his instruments and household goods down to “Pawnshop Kingdom”. “Took my toaster and guitar too.” “Look at your ticket, see what you can see. You can’t get no more money from me.” Wally Bechtold plays baritone and tenor sax on the song.

“Your Spell on Me” dips into the Louisiana swamps as James recites voodoo incantations from a book of old New Orleans voodoo spells in an easy stroll. Carl Sonny Leyland plays piano with Johnny Viau on sax, Buddy Clake on bass and Marty Dobson on trap drums. “Bean Soup” is a surf- rockabilly guitar instrumental featuring Mark Shewchuk with John Meriglano on drums and Dave Young on bass. James and Nathan trade guitar licks with Rich Delgrasso throwing in mandolin on “Anywhere USA”. The album closes with Bill Degnan dropping some Sci-Fi sounds from his self-built theremin played through a vintage 1972 tape echoplex.

In his album notes, James references the album as an “esoteric twist in modern blues…mixing traditional blues and different approaches”. Clearly “Beatnik Jam” and “High Strangeness” are well outside the realm of blues or roots music. Some of the other songs might pass through some gray areas of blues but do find a basis in a turn on the blues. “Your Spell on Me” on the surface with its voodoo spells does sound like it would be well outside the realm of blues, but in fact might be one of the album’s bluesiest, easy-going songs with its love spell. Traditional blues themes do transform in James’ hands and the talents of his many supporting musicians.