Ron Gragg - Hangin' Loose

Hear The Track Here

Since my first review of American acoustic musician Ron Gragg with Bang Bang (July 2008) I have ploughed my way through a great deal of his material, not always with nice things to say admittedly, but Ron Gragg is not a musician to take umbrage at negative things said about his music. Like a lot of (as it were) self made musicians, Ron's main audience is deep in his soul and that's good enough for me because that quality comes through on every track. Despite, I might add, some considerable difficulty in getting it all down and sounding right. The key word here is acoustic. Acoustic anything is a mighty sob to record and even more sob-ish when it comes to the final mixing. Getting a decent sound is good enough though and in that respect I don't think I've ever heard a bad sounding Ron Gragg track.

Telll ya what, at first I thought Ron had swallowed the Rolling Stones songbook because the intro had more than a shade of Honky Tonk Woman about it. Wait a minute! Wait a minute!! Didn't I just say that Ron was an acoustic musician? Yep, but not, it would appear, on Hangin' Loose - which does exactly what it says. Hand on heart, if Ron has ever given me a rock track before, I swear I can't remember it and I sure as *** would remember this bad boy. Couple of points though, it is a guitar instrumental delivered in a fairly standard rock arrangement so there are going to be several million people this isn't going to appeal to, but hey what do they know about the heady promise of rock?

As a consummate rock animal (and guitarist) it's obvious that a track like this is going to find favour, and indeed it will appeal to people already aware of Ron's musicianship and songwriting ability. As far as reaching wider ears, I'd say that was a different story. Ron Gragg is one of those musicians whose music is suffused with their passion and commitment and you can't help but admire that, but somehow his music has never set me on fire. I'm sure the man has it in him to do that, and I await the day. While I liked Hangin' Loose as said rock animal and guitarist, it certainly wasn't enough to hold my attention for long, although it was a pleasant surprise to hear Ron rocking out like a good 'un.

Recommended classic rock instrumental.