What do you do when you live in a wine-producing region and have to deal with publishing technical books most of your time?
Well, probably when you get a chance, you resort to that wine and make some music. That seems to be exactly the case with Patrick Ames, who seems to have decided to give book publishing a rest and pick up music. And whine, quite possibly.
You see, Ames live and works in the Napa Valley region of California, and there, wine is the main thing, and another valley, the one connected to all things technical, Silicon Valley is not that far away.
But music seems to be the thing for Ames these days, and he started out with a series of singles, of which “Rubber & Glue” is the latest.
Leaving the pandemic theme, which he dealt with on his previous two releases, “Rubber & Glue” has more of a feel-good retro vibe, possibly as an antidote to all the anxieties that the pandemic has created.
Ames picks up on those early to mid-’60s soul hit singles and gives them a more leisurely, countrified vibe, led by his weathered lead vocal and some great background singing by sister duo Chana and Mikaela Matthews, who keep the soul connection going.
“The song ‘Rubber & Glue’ has been around for a few years in my world and it has that nice worn leather kind of feel. It’s comfortable, you’ve heard it before, you like it, how far along do you start singing the lyrics? It shows my heritage. We were kids in the 1960s, playing baseball on Toledo’s streets at the height of Motown’s pull and songs like ‘Rubber & Glue’ were everywhere on the radio – take a known expression and make it into a song. From ‘I Heard It on the Grapevine’ to ‘Cloud Nine’ I played my best baseball to those endless songs on a transistor radio tuned to CKLW.”
Certainly, warm memories which Ames is able to recreate with “Rubber & Glue,” leaving ample room for his listeners to freely add their own.
