It’s fashionable these days to predict the demise of San Francisco. Its problems are vast; no one wants to live there; it’s too expensive. Long-time Philadelphia and San Francisco resident Tom Heyman has been around cities enough to know that’s cyclical, not an end destination. He documents his own love/hate relationship with the City by the Bay on his latest record, 24th Street Blues. It layers a folk singer’s lyrical observance of life over a roots rock soundtrack with a Petty groove.
The title track comes right out of the gate with that style, and is Heyman’s comment on his own neighborhood’s shift from working class to one dominated by construction cranes. The Mission is On Fire likewise comments on the developers who are “looking at the plans, working on the optics” after fires destroy older buildings. Like A Lion is a slow rocker about a different cycle in life, where you go from hating your dad to admiring him. Sonny Jim tells the story of a pretty boy who never worked for anything, and then couldn’t work for anything.
Quit Pretending is more of an acoustic number. With piano accompaniment to the guitar it’s kind of a Tom Waits song about needing to admit you care about what’s going on around you, with Heyman’s vocals providing a light scolding. White Econoline is a country ballad about the working life of illegal immigrants, from picking the fields in Santa Cruz to guarding the fields in Humboldt. Desperate puts in two appearances, with the redux putting an old Protestant church gospel feel to the search for something more, something “just beyond my outstretched hand”.
Tom Heyman has an eye for lives and places in flux. His time with Chuck Prophet, John Doe, Alejandro Escovedo and others taught him a variety of roots music ways to tell the stories he’s seen. So 24th Street Blues ends up having a comfortable familiarity to the music, yet leaving you with a slightly uneasy feeling about how things are going to turn out. It’s a captivating album. And as a bonus, the physical copy comes with a 60 page songbook illustrated with drawings from Heyman’s wife, artist Deirdre White.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.