If you’re old enough to remember Top 40 radio circa 1970, then you’ll likely recall how broad-minded it was in terms of the diverse styles heard on AM pop stations. The accelerating encroachment of corporate interests on the record and broadcast industries beginning in the late ’70s gradually narrowed the field, resulting in a more generic formula for hits. From a 2022 perspective, ’80s and perhaps even ’90s playlists seem liberal in contrast, though experimentalism was increasingly discouraged in myopic favor of the mainstream accessibility that, both for better and worse, still elevates obliging ear-ticklers like “Don’t Stop Believin'” and “Summer of ’69” some 40 years on.
Today’s record executives would sternly caution Jason Minton to make up his mind and give the marketing team a simplistic sub-genre suited for a one-dimensional demographic. But the Middle Tennessee native has developed his influence-rich pop/rock sound the time-honored way—in front of live audiences on small regional stages, supplying a generous mixture of ’60s, ’70s and ’80s covers with the same passion and commitment he and his now-solidified quintet bring to crowd-tested and approved original songs written in a similar vein.
Just Another Day, Minton’s fourth album and the first one billed to the Jason Minton Band, is a flavorful sampler of tunes that combine and alternate vintage-pop accessibility with elements of organic, guitar-driven classic rock. First and foremost, the album’s 13 cuts are vehicles for Minton’s finely honed voice, which—like his material—displays influences ranging from blues-inflected rock and melodic pop to blue-eyed soul, or white R&B.
As a writer and particularly as a vocalist, Minton impresses most by not trying too hard to impress. He sings with surefooted ease, not flash, on straightforward, solidly built songs such as the rhythmically insistent and lyrically declarative “Here and Now,” which offers a look inside Minton the man, not just the performer. Ditto for the affirming, two-fisted rocker “Fight” and the title cut, whose serious, faith-based intentions are underscored by darker shadings, especially in the B-section, where co-writer David Reed’s looping, atmospheric guitar lines join hands with co-producer Lang Bliss’s propulsive drumming and deft hi-hat and side-stick work in an effective nod to progressive ’80s popsters The Police.
More often, Minton offers up relationship scenarios both sweet and sour, with highlights including the buoyant, Motown-esque shuffle “Falling in Love” (very nearly too divergent from the rest of the record), the swaying, love-at-first-sight midtempo “Eyes on You,” and the more novel “Bored to Tears,” a lightly chugging, hooky mid-’70s-style treat whose dispirited protagonist can barely wait for his mate’s return. Not every track delivers the goods as reliably as these, but even unexceptional songs become part of an exceptional package that reveals more upon repeat listens, thanks to the attention lavished on their production by longtime creative partners Minton and Bliss. Boasting a steady stream of smartly conceived musical embroidery along with varied textures and grooves tastefully provided by the JBM’s ace players, the album maintains a level of quality and consistency uncommon for a self-released effort.
The stronger cuts on Just Another Day could once have been contenders for the golden-era airwaves, but Jason Minton Band does that classic period one better: revisiting its now-predictable charms, Minton and company offer a freshly distilled alternative for the 21st century—one that, like the most memorable late-20th-century pop/rock, might just prove sufficiently durable to be enjoyed another 40 or 50 years down the road. Narrow-minded record executives, consider yourselves warned.
