The Americana highway must be gridlocked judging by the number of earnest gentlemen adopting the blue collar and pickup truck approach to song writing and performance. However, there’s always room for one more and Otis Gibbs has duly stepped up to fill that ever decreasing gap with his album “Harder Than Hammered Hell”.
While he hasn’t got the factory floor realism of Rod Picott or, indeed, the practised humour of Bob Cheevers, Otis Gibbs makes a convincing case for check shirts and ungainly beards here. Gruff of voice, he echoes conventional Nashville sentimentality throughout with “Don’t Worry Kid” and particularly “Never Enough” providing more than enough evidence of his commercial song writing ability.
Keeping it real seems to be his game and you can’t argue with that as a career direction but Pontiac or Cadillac, this is all proud to be made in the USA Detroit steel.