Bloomin’ by Josh Okeefe
The picture on the album cover tells the story. With his flannel jacket and a cap perched on a mop of hair, Josh Okeefe looks like one of Bob Dylan’s freewheeling pals in his Greenwich Village days. The British folksinger’s music as well as his sartorial choices are firmly in that tradition. Singing in a raw voice and accompanying himself on a hard plucked acoustic guitar (punctuated by harmonica in between verses), Okeefe denounces social ills (“Thoughts & Prayers”), revisits Woody Guthrie’s style of humor (“Talkin’ Neighbor from Hell”) and waxes apocalyptic (“When Mother Nature Calls”). The heritage of the ‘60s folk revival has an able young caretaker in Okeefe.
Josh Okeefe performs April 9 at the Irish Cultural and Heritage Center.
