Scotty Karate is Somebody Special on Always Honey LP
By Deuce
Scotty Karate can do a lot of things, and indeed does just that on his latest Long Player Always Honey. He’s definitely got his own style when it comes to dropping vocals behind the mic. He’s got a propensity for writing songs, as well as singing those he didn’t pen (check the cover of the Righteous Brothers’ “Unchained Melody” on this one). He’s also equally at home on the cue sticks, interestingly enough.
But what he arguably does best, however, is man the guitar. Actually he does so for a couple of them, from conventional acoustic to rhythm guitars and the electric variety, including those twangy effects found on westerns when the good stuff’s gonna go down. He comes in with these intermittently on the title track to produce a spontaneous effect that moves the piece well.
But what he excels at, however, is what seems like a rhythm guitar. It appears to pack the lows of a bass at times—many times, that is. But it still has the character, the mid and upper range, of a guitar as opposed to a bass guitar, and is nothing near the grungy metal type deal commonly found throughout rock numbers.
Whatever type of instrument it is, he’s got it down like none other. It grooves just like a bass on “Always Honey”, which works at a nice, slow tempo you can put your head into and which becomes the substance for his emitting high notes with a countrified falsetto that is fairly distinctive.
It’s the same deal on “SSMM”, but only exponentially better. Money’s really strumming that thing for all it’s worth and it sounds so good operating between a bass and rhythm guitar while he laments the fact “somebody stole my move”. He’s one of those song writers you can easily tell makes a point to keep his lyrics basic so they’re relatable to as broad an audience as possible, a maneuver Sam Cooke spoke publicly about as characterizing the everyman anthems of accomplished songwriting.
The opening number, “Lot Lot” epitomizes this quality as he voices the fact that something’s making a “lot lot of people feel good”. Doesn’t necessarily matter what the cause is, for all that matter he could be describing his own album. The bottom line is it works well, making for an interesting listen from a variety of perspectives.
