Americana Power Pop examining identity, story, spirituality and grief.
It’s quite a distance from New York City to Water Valley, Mississippi, a small town in the deep south of the USA, not too far from Tupelo. With its thriving music scene, it was here that native New Yorker Pete Mancini chose to record his fourth solo album ‘American Equator’. Produced by Drive-By Trucker Matt Patton in his studio, Dial Back Sound, the pair had also collaborated on Mancini’s ‘Killing The Old Ways’ in 2020.
With Patton again producing and playing terrific bass lines alongside fellow Trucker Jay Gonzalez on keyboards and guitars, comparisons are inevitably made with Drive-By Truckers. While it’s true to say that their many fans will find much to love about this album, there are other influences at work here. With hints of Blondie and The Rembrandts (not just THAT song) this collection lives up to Mancini’s strap line of “Americana Power Pop” but there’s a great deal more to reward the discerning listener here.
Back in the Big Apple, Mancini fronts his band The Hillside Airmen but he can also be found on solo tours, frequently opening for the legendary songwriter Jimmy Webb. Unquestionably someone who deserves his place in the tower of song, at his shows Webb also shares the stage with Mancini for his rendition of ‘MacArthur Park’ and other iconic hits, the guitarist laying down some fine blues patterns on his Telecaster. To be given the call by such as Webb can only work wonders for one’s self-esteem.
After several years with his band Butchers Blind, Mancini released his first solo album in 2017 but it seems to have been the partnership with Matt Patton and Bronson Tew at Dial Back Sound that really got the singer-songwriter’s creative juices flowing. In 2024 he teamed up with Rich Lanahan to release ‘Silent Troubadour’, a tribute to Gene Clark of The Byrds. Now with ‘American Equator’ he puts all that experience to maximum effect in a collection of ten songs that crackle and pop, rattle and hum with energy and commitment.
Co-written with Travis McKeveny, ‘Calamity People’ kickstarts things with Doobie Brothers-style harmonies and a blistering early guitar solo signalling real intent. Closing with the lines
“When they lay these days to rest
The casket will be closed, it’s for the best”
The title track then opens with the same two lines before questioning American identity and the forces that may lead to “Blood on the Capitol steps”.
‘Technicolor Days’ is a melodic and nostalgic look at better times while ‘Skid Row Skyline’ and ‘Spy Rock Road’ paint a bleaker picture of life in the underclass. ‘The Paris Hotel’ has a lovely bitter-sweet quality that brings to mind Jimmy Webb’s ‘By The Time I Get To Phoenix’ while ‘Leaving For Raleigh’ continues in the same wistful vein, showing that Mancini can write a ballad with the best of them.
The closing tracks take on a more introspective feel as the artist deals with loss and grief. The plaintive vocal of ‘Stomping Grounds’ pulls at the heart-strings in the way that Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes so often does, before ‘The Signal’ and ‘Sun Came Up’ round things off and leave us in pensive but uplifted mood.
