A couple of years ago, Tyrone Wells was using his weekly coffeehouse gig as a testing ground for his songwriting. It wasn’t long before he was selling out the most popular clubs in Los Angeles. Not bad for a guy whose stage fright almost kept him out of the limelight.
Born a preacher’s son and cut off from the world of pop music, Wells was spurred on by the sound of gospel, which will surprise no one who hears his heavily soulful voice or the gospel chorus call/response bridge on “What Are We Fighting For?”, the lead track from Wells’s latest release, Hold On. Despite Wells’s background, Hold On actually is a balanced collage of pop, gospel, rock and funk, which Wells has stirred together with an
authenticity all his own.
While Hold On’s songs maintain a fairly standard structure, Wells colors in the lines distinctively, in a style that fits somewhere between the limber, jazzy approach of Jason Mraz and the gritty Southern soul of Marc Broussard. There’s no doubt that Wells has won over fans with catchy, uplifting choruses like on “Dream Like New York,” and I guarantee there’s a guy somewhere trying to impress his girlfriend with a serenade of “Sea Breeze.” (Wells actually has a hilarious, true anecdote about this on his website.) Though Hold On is Wells’s first album with a full band behind him, he’s a natural at pulling off a soaring arena-rock sound. Truth be told, this guy can wail!
It’s songs like “What Are We Fighting For,” “Need,” “Falling,” and “Jealous Man” where Wells showcases his outstanding range. On “Falling,” the stripped-down bassline guides Wells’s vocals into the chorus, where he pulls off the falsetto with such grace that you hardly even notice his tightly stitched leap into the melody. Straight-up acoustic-rock strumming opens “Jealous Man,” setting up for a crunchy surge of electric guitar that ignites a hard-hitting chorus. By the end of the song, Wells is pushing his vocals so full-heartedly that it’s a miracle he has enough air to finish each line. The violin intro of “Looking at Her Face” supplies the comedown calm after the storm.
With the backing of a band, singer-songwriters sometimes risk drowning or at least distorting the distinguishing nuances of their style. But Hold On proves both how deft a songcraftsman Wells is, and how suited his voice is for a band. Even with lead guitars, drums and keyboards around him, each instrument is tactfully placed to accentuate the songs without becoming a distraction. This allows Wells to drive the melodies across a dynamic spectrum.
And those melodies stick. I realized this when I woke up one morning singing the chorus to “What Are We Fighting For?” It didn’t take long for this record to put a “hold on” on me.
— Jon Lanman
A couple of years ago, Tyrone Wells was using his weekly coffeehouse gig as a testing ground for his songwriting. It wasn’t long before he was selling out the most popular clubs in Los Angeles. Not bad for a guy whose stage fright almost kept him out of the limelight.