Joseph Allen White

Joseph Allen White, at one point during Things Change, lays out the central conundrum facing the heartbroken: “How do you make new tomorrows,” White sings during “Circle,” “when you can’t erase the past?” White began this journey as his eight-year marriage fell apart. Having just begun working as a musician, he found an emotional refuge, and a bridge to the next chapter. Together with fellow guitarists Jon Callender and Joe Harmer, he crafted a country-tinged rock record that confronts his own stinging loneliness even as it recounts his steady progress into a new life.

He explores that pain through finely wrought moments like the title track, which follows ardor’s arc from first date to wedding day, then to what comes next. “We do our best to remain the same,” White sings, “but sometimes, things change.” There was too much fighting, he adds, and not enough fun. Suddenly, after a revelation of infidelity, it was over. That’s a lot to sort through, as he tries to come to grips with what happened, and then to love again. In keeping, Things Change can be a dark and brooding ride. But White never gives in to despair, and the album is better for it.

A jarring polyrhythm adds the right complexity to “Just Lost,” which moves from an angry Steve Earle-sounding verse to a towering chorus. White repeats the title with a conquered romanticism. “Circle,” driven by a desolate piano accompaniment by Andy Anderson, finds the main character desperately trying to move on. Ultimately, in a shivering bellow straight out of Hootie and the Blowfish, White admits that the lonely maze of being alone is simply too confusing. “The End of Us,” a duet with Lauren Rebel, deftly describes the void left at the very moment of a matrimonial dissolution – when the divorce papers are signed the lawyer’s office.

“Piercing Green (Come Back to Me)” with a chugging orchestral arrangement by Anderson, is emotionally raw plea for a return to the way things were before. Even songs that don’t focus specifically on his own breakup, like “I Will Miss You” (a swirling memory of a love lost to some unnamed illness), pack a devastating punch. Glimpses of a marriage’s lasting comforts flash by with touching specificity. “Wouldn’t change a thing,” White adds. “You’ll be forever in my head.”

“Just Friends,” with its easy backroad gait, finds White’s character sorting through a series of failed attempts to connect with a familiar face. He ends up singing the song’s two-word title with an angry clinch. Not that it’s all about loss. White eventually gets back in the game, or tries to, with “Love the Thought.” A dancehall moment, this musical embrace so full of promise, opens his heart again to the possibilities that still exist. Learning to trust is going to be difficult, on both sides, but there is the first glistening shard of hope. Then “First Night” bursts out with a perky expectancy, followed by “Tracy,” which puts a name to his new love. “Again” is a pop testament of faith in beginning again.

An optimist’s steady faith is tested in the tuneful, tender “Wait to Win,” making it difficult to open herself to passion’s prospect. White offers the lyric with an affecting weariness. Eventually, that faith is rewarded: “She has an image in her mind, of the way it’s supposed to be,” White sings, “and now it is within her sights.”

“Complete Me” is a direct accounting of the small, true joys of a blossoming relationship. There’s not much new lyrically here, from holding hands with stars in your eyes to referencing the film “Jerry Maguire.” Still it’s hard to argue with this sunny optimism, and the tune is one of several that provide a needed counterweight against the darker themes that dominate Things Change.

In the end, White seems to be taking the album’s title to heart. Sometimes, things change for the worse. Sometimes, for the better.

Reviewed by Nick DeRiso
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5) - Nick DeRiso / Review You

In the annals of pop and rock music, much ink has been spilled by music journalists analyzing and critiquing the confessional “break-up” albums of yore. The ones that immediately come to mind are of course, Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, Richard and Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out the Lights, Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear and Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love. How much of these songs of heartbreak, anger and guilt are artistic fabrications is anyone’s guess naturally, but the back story definitely spices things up for the avid listener considerably.

If you believe what you read in singer-songwriter Joseph Allen White’s biography, this debut album took shape due to the personal tragedy of the demise of his 8 year-old marriage. At that point, we are given to understand that White had barely begun to learn how to play the guitar when he discovered his wife’s infidelity and began to write songs as a means to deal with his dilemma. Certainly, for fans of confessional country-folk music this album, appropriately titled Music From the Heart, is a silver lining in White’s pitch dark cloud.

A blessing in disguise for all concerned? Perhaps. For music lovers, songs like “Things Change”, “The End of Us” and “I Will Miss You” will resonate strongly especially with the background firmly in mind.

The fragile “Things Change” is a detailed chronology of a relationship that began with young lovers, estrangement, finally betrayal of the marriage vows and the inevitable breakup. The impermanence of love is the obvious theme here as White sings, “she’ll go drink with friends and I’ll drink alone/she would never call me on the way back home/then on one fateful night, I had done all I can and found herself in the arms of another man“. Poignant words but one must question the choice to put White’s heartfelt vocals through an auto-tune software, which somewhat deflates the emotion.

“I Will Miss You” is a sad reflection of what White had lost and depending on one’s perspective, that depressing feeling threatens to drag the song down, especially in the chorus, “I will always miss you/You were taken away too soon/Hear your voice, see your smile/Under the light of the moon“. That said, there is an almost slow rock anthemic quality about the chorus that can either be viewed as cliched or a deliberate attempt to contrast lyrics with music.

“The End of Us” is self-explanatory. Very literally, a divorce ballad, as White gets specific about how he felt and what he thought when his divorce became final. Joined by backing singer Lauren Rebel, there is added pathos when presented as a duet. Led by a catchy piano hook, melody line and revealing lyrics, “walked out together on that rainy day/looked at your eyes, didn’t know what to say/wanted to hug you and tell you goodbye/but I was too afraid that I’d start to cry“. Yes, all very maudlin but to his credit White does not dwell on misfortune but is able to look to the future as well: “it’s not the end of the world, it’s just the end of us.”

On that positive note, it’s heartening that the album is bookended by songs of hope. The opening “Complete Me” is a love song that indicates that White has moved on and started a new life with someone else, “You’re are the sweetest dream, the greatest song, the air I breathe/like that famous music scene, oh yeah, you complete me“: the romantic words of an obviously smitten man. The final track “Again” was the song that started this impressive song cycle. It’s clear that it’s a song of redemption even as White learns how to love and trust someone all over again but with the expected cautionary reservation, “I won’t rush in/I won’t fall down again/I can’t let go/I can’t get hurt again”.

In conclusion, there’s enough joy, pain and hope in Music From the Heart that will appeal to music listeners who need to connect with the emotional aspects of songwriting. No problem with that, with the added bonus that together with producer Andy Anderson, White has constructed a soundscape that is sensitive to the message (and moral) of Music From the Heart, “life may knock you down, but it’s in the getting up again that defines whether we succeed or fail”.

Truly inspirational.

Reviewed by Kevin Mathews
Rating: 4 Stars (out of 5) - Kevin Mathews / Review You

Truly great music is much more than just a catchy tune. Joseph Allen White’s debut album ‘Things Change’ is an example of how the best records sometimes come from the bitterest of personal circumstances.

White, a singer-songwriter who, remarkably, only started playing the guitar less than two years ago, forged this painfully beautiful album out of the moment when his life changed forever.

In 2009, after 8 years of marriage, White found out that his wife had been having an affair. He immediately turned his attention to his guitar and a few short months later he had penned the first song for the album, ‘Again’.

As he took to the studio to help him get his life together, the creativity just kept coming. As the man himself says about putting down 13 songs for the record in a short space of time – “they just kept pouring out of me”.

Although this is a record about redemption, about life lessons and about heartbreak; it is also about hope, love and second chances. There are inspirational songs of love such as ‘Complete Me’ and ‘First Night’ mixed in with the poignancy of the painfully personal and cathartic tracks like ‘Things Change’ or ‘The End of Us’.

Musically, White is difficult to pigeon-hole. There is something country in the storytelling element of the songs, but his music has its roots more in the indie and folk scene. He has been compared to artists such as Edwin McCain, Howie Day, even John Mayer – all artists that White has profound respect for.

Away from the personal tragedy, the story of this album is one of triumph. Few such accomplished records have been made by someone whose first lesson on the guitar took place only two years ago. The fact that the sound is so fresh and original is a testament to the innate talent of the artist.

Aided by the expert production skills of Andy Anderson, who brings the emotion out of the raw material supplied by White, this is as fine a debut effort as you are likely to hear.

Anyone who likes great songwriting and music that means something will love ‘Things Change’.

As White says, the only problem is that he couldn’t include the songs he’s written in recent weeks. “I guess those are for album 2” he says. Something else to look forward to next year… - Beat Wire