Album Notes

Following a successful run of European dates, Joseph Parsons and his touring band camped out a small studio outside Paris. The fruit of their labour, The Fleury Sessions, captures the band at its most cohesive and lends an unstudied organic feel to a new batch of songs that will delight Parsons’ growing fan base.

There is a bright, breezy, optimistic flow to theses songs that belies the current state of the world but underscores our need to cut through to the light that is always just beyond the darkness.

The band assembled for this project includes Parsons on guitar and vocals, Tom Gillam (lead guitar), Scott Bricklin (bass) and Matt Muir (drums). The band amplify the strong sing-along melodies with bright vocal harmonies that are reminiscent of Parsons work with 4 Way Street on the Pretzel Park album.

The Fleury Sessions kicks off on an upbeat note with Sun’s Gonna Shine and it seems nothing is going break Parsons’ mood. We are introduced to the guitar work of Tom Gilliam, who weaves his signature throughout the proceedings without ever overpowering the solid work of his fellow musicians. On the opener he brings to mind the late Beatles era George Harrison.

The album continues on a front porch country rock trail through Fool Again and Taken By Surprise until we arrive at Shine (in many ways a foil for Sun’s Gonna Shine). This takes us to the underside with more Gillam guitar licks, this time with an emotional intensity that will appeal to fans of David Gilmour.

King of Baltimore would shine among the works of John Fogerty, Dave Edmunds or Tom Petty but it is pure Parsons – narrated by the vagabond man and populated by “gypsies, beggars and one-eyed men

By the time we reach First Sight it’s evident that the band is still having a good time. The melody is memorable – you’ll be singing this one in the shower and who will argue with the concept of love at first sight?

This is a joyous album. It captures a songwriter at the top of his game in the company of skilled musicians who know how to let the music lead where it will.