Jeremy Ivey
The Dream and the Dreamer
Anti Records
‘The first line I read from the review materials about the debut album from Jeremy Ivey, The Dream and the Dreamer had the following interesting quote – “I want to prove that you can be in your 40’s and be at the peak of your creativity… “Not a has-been, but as an ‘is-being. Since I’m in that same boat, I really dug into the album to see where he’s coming from and what I found was something I could not only relate to but, found a great collection of songs that are about something tangible.
The music is without a doubt an eclectic mix across all genres and if you think that this music is in any way a continuation of what he has done with his producer and wife, Margo Price, you would be mistaken. These songs, and the direction that Jeremy is piloting his ship are uniquely his. He continues – “The best thing I could say is that I’m trying to fill the holes that I can see in the scene, whether it be Americana or country or rock or whatever. There’s a certain type of song that isn’t being written.”
Recorded at Reel Recording in Nashville, the album was produced by his multi-talented wife, Margo Price. Engineered by Mark Galup and Erik Thompson and mixed by one of my favorite guys out in Memphis, Matt Ross-Sprang at Sam Phillips Recording and mastered back in Nashville by John Baldwin. Jeremy handles the vocals, guitar, harmonica and keys as well as wrote everything on the album with the exception of the song “Story of a Fish” which he wrote with Margo, who also sings on the album. Evan Donahue plays electric guitar and vocals, Coley Hinson played bass and vocals, Josh Minyard did the drums and percussion, and Alex Munoz played the lap steel.
“Diamonds Back to Coal” is the lead off track and has interesting lyrics like, “Is this the land of bone and cinder? Where they farm the GMO? Who’s gonna be the next pretender? Who’s gonna try to play that role? Turning diamonds back to coal” He seems to point out a lot of things that we take for granted as normal, and then asks why that’s the way things are. “Falling Man”, “Story of a Fish”, and “Worry Doll” all give me a Byrds/Gram Parsons 1960’s vibe while mixing in some 1990’s Cracker, off-beat phrasing. “Laughing Willy” and “Gina the Tramp” are very interesting vignettes with more of that same off beat phrasing that works very well for Jeremy’s delivery of the lyrics. It’s completely new, interesting, and his stories and characters are completely believable and feel like they may have been drawn from real life stories. “Greyhound” and “Ahead, Behind” might be the most “radio friendly” tracks due to the upbeat nature of the songs but don’t mistake that to mean that they’re not fantastically done. The entire album is filled with honest songwriting and as a debut album, Jeremy has put out a great piece of art that is a solid foundation to continue his solo projects. I look forward to the next batch of truth he decided to put out and will be following along with any direction he decides to follow next.
