Untitled - Allensworth

OC Music Awards 2012: Allensworth Gets Real With Raw, Soulful Funk by. Nadia Noir-KROQ
Celebrating its 11th anniversary, the OC Music Awards
kicks off on January 3rd with seven weeks of free showcases at different venues across the county. 35 local artists will compete for the titles of Best Live Band or Best
Live Acoustic and a performance slot at the 2012 OC
Music Awards, March 3 at the Grove of Anaheim. And,
the voting is open now!
”I just know it’s the only thing I can 100% express
myself through and it’s the only thing that gives me the
gratification that I need...I know that’s what I’ll be doing until I’m gone and the older I get, the more mellow
I get,” said Jamie Allensworth, frontman to the delicately-ripened raw-funk band based in Huntington Beach called
Allensworth.The man of the same last name is sitting outside. Through the phone I can hear birds singing; the sunshine
seems to push through the technology into my windowless office.Allensworth encourages me to “go outside” and “enjoy this beautiful day,” a sentiment evident in the soulful amber-toned timbre of his voice that has echoes of a duskier
Curtis Mayfield or the surprisingly upbeat, yet lovelorn lyrics.Just like he is trying to construct the beauty of my day,
Allensworth is constructing through his music a living sonic synesthesia of sound, light, and feeling.
Despite the name of the band, Allensworth (as a band) was a name that Allensworth (the man) was talked into. Other
members of the band, or as they call themselves in a bio, a “collective sextet” include Anthony Gonzales (percussion, vocals), Paul Clark (woodwinds, keys), Johnny Baldaray (bass, vocals), Patrick Bailey (guitar), and Tom Plumb
(drums.)
”I find whenever I get these gems, it’s just from alone time somewhere in the forest...or sitting on the beach.” The radiant positivity and organic emotional landscapes created by Allensworth (from here on out, the collective), is partially
because of Jamie’s penchant for the great outdoors. Sublimating his experience as a “skater kid from Orange County”
into his music has brought on an appreciation for other outdoor activities like getting “back in touch with nature. Camping, hiking, snowboarding, and surf.”
Part of his writing process, or artistic process in general, includes going to Yosemite, which Jamie has been doing since
he was 15-years-old.“I’ll hike half-way up to Half Dome or I know all these little spots–a couple places we call Fantasy Island and stuff…That’s pretty much one of my inspirational spots,” Jamie explained. “I find whenever I get these
gems, it’s just from alone time somewhere in the forest…or sitting on the beach. These are the times when it’s just quiet
and all you can hear are the birds.”
”I’d much rather stay in Montana and get into it.”Jamie continued, describing a situation that is all too familiar to most
city dwellers, “It’s the time when I can really dig deep and figure out what’s going on instead of sitting in a room with
the neighbors in Apartment C cracking up to whatever they’re watching on TV.“
Allensworth just got back from the wild, natural terrain of Australia and Jamie said that band is contemplating recording a “concept album” with songs “linked together with instrumental interludes” at a studio in the middle of nowhere
in Montana similarly to Bon Iver, who recorded his solo album in his fathers cabin, or Feist, who recorded her latest
album in a barn.
Jamie explained that he was “tending to gravitate more towards being away from the city in terms of recording rather
than stuck in the hustle bustle, rolling into L.A., or Laurel Canyon, and sitting in traffic just because you want to track a
couple of songs. I’d much rather stay in Montana and get into it.”
Photo by. Speysyde
Orange Pop: Allensworth gets its groove on
posted by KELLI SKYE FADROSKI,
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
What better way to spend a relaxing Sunday
afternoon than sipping mimosas and grooving
along to a smooth live band? That’s exactly what
local acoustic soul/funk act Allensworth will do
this weekend at the new Commonwealth Lounge
in Newport Beach.
The six-piece group — which at times expands
to eight or 10 players — has been trying out new
material during afternoon stints at the club. Vocalist/guitarist Jamie Allensworth says they’ve
seriously been digging the vibe.
“It’s a cool little spot and it’s exactly what our
music is, just relaxing and chilling,” he says
during a recent phone chat. “Some of the lyrical content might be a little heavier, but the vibe
of all the songs is still more to the chill point. It
mixes well because we start out slow, since it’s a Sunday, but as people start getting those mimosas and get a little saucy,
we crank it up a bit to get people dancing.”Allensworth, obviously titled after its bushy and bearded leader, came together
four years ago, comprised of musicians who split time in multiple soul, funk and blues acts locally, including Breakestra,
Soul Hustlers, Nafro, the Rebirth and Leparis Nervosa, to mention a few.
“I’ve been playing with a majority of these cats since 1996,” Allensworth says. “We’ve been together in a bunch of bands
and we play around a lot, so each guy in this group came from a different outfit. This just happens to be my solo thing,
but everyone is super-talented and everyone has their own things going on, too.”
Allensworth — along with percussionist Anthony Gonzales, guitarist Patrick Bailey, bassist John Balderay, keys player
Paul Clark and drummer Tom Plumb — come together every few weeks to work on this particular project. Though they’re
all seasoned musicians who wear various hats in different groups, Allensworth says it never really gets confusing as to
who is playing what and when. “We kind of all just do whatever,” he says. “Whoever wants us to do whatever project, we
just jump up and make noise.”As for his own music, Allensworth has been working on fresh material between his duties
in other bands while also co-writing songs with rapper Big B. The new stuff, he says, has the same sort of acoustic groove,
but it’s undecided if it will wind up as just an EP or to flesh out a full-length follow-up to 2007’s Broken Leaves.“We
definitely have a box set’s worth of songs right now,” he says. “But we’re slowly getting them out there and playing them
to see how it feels. Who knows what they’ll turn in to?”Allensworth grew up listening to a variety of music and singing
in his church. His biological father was into outlaw country music from artists like Waylon Jennings, and later on he was
influenced by his stepfather, who played in a Polynesian band. Along the way he discovered Otis Redding, James Brown
and other icons on his own.“I started listening to the Beatles,” he remembers. “No one in my family liked the Beatles. You
don’t see many Polynesians listening to the Beatles.”While attending high school at Rancho Alamitos in Garden Grove he
met up with Gonzales. The two would skateboard together or team up with MCs in their school to create music.“The MCs
would battle each other and we used to have this band — JYB, the Junk Yard Band — and we’d put together the music
and do percussion. We’d use anything — we would do percussion with Sparkletts water bottles. We knew we wanted to
do music even way back then.”
These days Allensworth is pacing himself — he doesn’t want to overexert himself by booking too many more shows
while he sorts out what to record in the studio. These Sunday shows, he says, have been a good trial run, but he’ll need
to take a little break soon.
“Once (recording) is done, we’re definitely looking to get out this summer. In August we’ll be gone for a week or two and
we’ll see what happens. If not everyone can make it we can sub in people, but we do want to get out and do some festivals
photo: Randy Nicolas
and play in front of some bigger crowds.”
OC WEEKLY
Locals Only
Allensworth
By DAVE SEGAL
At the recent release party for the CD under review here at Detroit Bar, Huntington Beach group Allensworth generated
a steamy funk-soul brew of impressive intensity and dexterity. It was damned exciting.
So when I popped Allensworth’s Broken Leaves into the player, I expected heat, a sound somewhere between early War
(they cover “Slippin’ Into Darkness” with righteous nuance) and peak-time Average White Band. Instead, the disc radiates a mellow amber glow, a post-coital languor that’s more about pillow talk than dance-floor maneuvers. Which is cool,
but I think Allensworth excel at the party-rockin’ funk that is a raucous prelude to the bedroom and (one hopes) the
post-coital pillow talk.
The 11 tracks on Broken Leaves will provide your recommended yearly amount of positive vibes in 41 minutes. Front
man Jamie Allensworth has the sort of warm, extroverted personality and burnished, raw-soul vox that earn him the
right to name the group after himself. (Allensworth’s membership includes folks from Nafro and Liparis Nervosa.)
“Standing in Line” sets the album’s tone: a downtempo, easy-going lope of a song that’s as welcoming as the gradual embrace of a lover after a hard day of work; it’s something you can imagine Al Green nodding his head in appreciation to.
“Let It Rain”—which isn’t the Eric Clapton classic, but Allensworth could probably do it justice—exudes a Style Councilesque air of peppy yet casual soulfulness, a glinting optimism. “Stay Inside” and “411” are lilting, romantic numbers
geared for wooing and doing—and maybe ruing. “Push Me Off ” is the album’s most scorching funk track, evoking Curtis
Mayfield’s Superfly (high praise, indeed).
Allensworth show reverence for the grand soul-music tradition, but not obsequiously so. They realize that this is their
raison d’être, and they simply get the job done with prodigious skill and deep feeling.
For more information, visit allensworhmusic.com