If you’ve ever heard, let alone developed a profound fondness for, The Vogues “Turn Around Look At Me”, then stop whatever you’re doing, and see just when and how you can get a hold of Phil Gammage’s latest LP, Redeemed.

Once you’ve done so, go immediately to the very last number on the joint, “The Rain”. Hear that pleasing melody he’s drifting past your ear holes? Dig those triplets and the sugary piano that comes in every now and again? Are you ensnared, entranced, enchanted, yet?

Gammage can do no wrong on this track that’s less than 3 minutes in length. It somehow manages to combine the music to drive by Mrs. Daisy appeal of Sam Cook’s “Summertime”—especially on the organs, but more on that later—with the purity of the melody and sentiment of The Vogues. A better ending, or opener, to an album is not impossible, yet nonetheless difficult to find.

Gammage has got a lot going for him on this release, in addition to the rain he sings about on the grand finale. And, it’s really not until you get to that point in the collection of tunes that you can tell, for sure, exactly how seriously he takes himself as a vocalist. Sometimes his runs and interpretations of melody seem outright droll (check some of his high notes on “Woman”), which is simply remarkable for its mastery of tubed guitars a la those found on any Western worthy of the title of this type of movie, especially those with showdowns at high noon, pardner. Other times he’s kicking a cross between spoken word and poetry while all but talking his way through the verses on the album’s first track, “Good Place”, before restoring his conventional singing voice on the hook.

On this number and a few others he’s joined by a female vocalist who takes the highs while he adapts to the lows. “Place” is a particularly good, as it were, example because it boasts the sort of organ that levitates, vibrating and gyrating in the distance, that sounds oh so likable if not lovable. “Redeemed” is another one in which the organ threatens to take over the lead from the guitar, it’s so irrepressible. The same can be said for Gammage’s effort on this outing as the whole—especially on “The Rain”.