Billy Walton Band
Album: Crank It Up!
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 10
Website: http://www.billywaltonband.com

Billy Walton is a 15-year veteran of the music business. This may not seem a big deal but when you consider that he is only 30 years old it makes it seem all the more impressive. Hailing from Asbury Park, New Jersey (where have we heard that one before?) Walton has the inevitable link to The Boss. Having sat in on sessions with Springsteen and toured with Bon Jovi both of these, mixed with more obvious blues influences, constitute the 10 tracks on his latest album.

Walton sounds so much like Jon Bon Jovi (although not the over-earnest version of the 1980's) in the way he sings to the point that at times I almost felt like some of these tracks were him. Coupled with the slower numbers (Till Tomorrow, Night Turns Blue) the only thing that stops this album being a pastiche of the New Jersey's most famous sons is Walton's sublime guitar playing. The afore-mentioned Night Turns Blue is of a lesser tempo than other tracks on the album but that doesn't stop the last third of the song featuring an absolutely on-fire solo.

The sax featured sporadically throughout, for example on One In A Million, is used to complement the guitar theatrics but again leads you to be drawn back to Clarence Clemons work with the E-Street Band. Walton fits into that bracket of the hard working, soulful, man of the people with his lyrical themes of love and small town living. His guitar playing is also extremely above average but until he steps out of the two bigger shadows that are over him he may struggle to carve out his own place in the music world.

Walton has often been in bands (the Billy Walton Band is his attempt to step out of the shadows) and his live performances are scorching. It just feels like if that could be translated into his studio work then he could really become the third point in a New Jersey triumvirate of greatness.

Simon Ridley