Far From Over

by Edwin McCain

Product Description:

Personnel includes: Edwin McCain (vocals, acoustic & electric guitars); Shawn Colvin (vocals); Larry Chaney (acoustic & electric guitar, lap steel, mandolin); Craig Shields (winds, saxophone, keyboards); Scott Bannevich (bass); Dave Harrison (drums, percussion, programming).

Producers include: Greg Archilla, Edwin McCain, Scott Bannevich, Larry Chaney, Craig Shields.

Recorded at Pedernales Studios, Austin, Texas.

Though dissenters initially tried to write Edwin McCain off as a Hootie wannabe (he toured with them and they do sometimes mine similar heartland rock territory), McCain's got his own thing going on. If he brings any other artist to mind, it's more likely to be the Black Crowes, with whom Southerner McCain shares a love of hard-driving, blues-inflected, all-American rock.

"Get Out of This Town," one of FAR FROM OVER's more hard-hitting numbers, wouldn't sound at all out of place in the hands of the Robinson brothers. The wide-open sonic spaces of the title track show a debt to '80s roots-rockers like Tom Petty and Springsteen, but ultimately align McCain with such contemporaries as Train. The Springsteen comparison reappears when McCain reveals his balladic side on "Kentucky," complete with mournful saxophone (imagine the Boss on the other side of the Mason-Dixon Line). So forget the Hootie oversimplifications, and be advised that McCain's influences reach farther than his own backyard.