Photo courtesy Lil Rev
Jim Eannelli and Lil Rev
Jim Eannelli and Lil Rev
This Summer Lil Rev issued his 20th album, Unheard: Songs from the Street (20th including his recordings with Frogwater and Larry Penn) and it’s unlike anything else by the Milwaukee-Sheboygan folksinger. For Unheard, Rev collaborated with longtime musical partner Jim Eannelli, a veteran Milwaukee musician whose resume includes the power pop Shivvers and the techno pop Colour Radio as well as bluegrass, folk and stints in just about every genre. “Jim has an open invitation to play any gig he wants with me whenever he likes,” Rev says. Unheard’s songs are all Rev’s, but Eannelli, working out of his home studio and playing guitars, drums, bass and keyboards, adds a sonic dimension that Rev admits is unheard on his previous recordings.
‘Unheard: Songs’ from the Street by Lil Rev
Although he’s worked with many other Milwaukee producers, including William Stace and Scott Finch, “we recorded those albums live with very little overdubbing,” Rev recalls. By contrast, Eannelli’s production for Unheard is multitracked without losing the music’s organic sensibility. The recording sessions began in 2021 (Rev and Eannelli wore masks at first) and concluded this spring. The album was released in July. “We had time,” Rev explains of the unhurried process. “We could let the songs breath, put them aside for a week or a month and listen to them again. I could never have made this album without Jimmy.” Rev completed work on Unheard with the end of COVID restrictions and resumed his usual coast-to-coast performance schedule of folk festivals and clubs.
Unheard is the culmination of a long relationship. Over the past decade, Rev and Eannelli have played together as a duo, augmented by distinguished guests such as Jim Liban and Guy Fiorentini, at Summerfest, South Shore Farmers Market, Tonic Tavern and house concerts across the state. “The first time we sat down and started playing, it was like putting on an old shoe,” Eannelli says. He describes the recordings that came from the Unheard sessions as “the Americana that’s been spinning around in my head for years.”
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The album opens with “Soda Pop,” a lyric that embodies the lulling hours of an endless summer, catching in a bottle the lazy mood—sex and maybe love notwithstanding—in those hazy, crazy days. Eannelli’s edge comes across in an anthemic electric guitar riff that uplifts “Soda Pop.” It’s a great rock song stitched with American threads. Rev describes it and much of the album as “a deep earthy sound I haven’t done on a recording before, a real mix of acoustic and electric. Jimmy sends most of what I’ve done into the stratosphere—the edge he brings to it and his guitar chops.”
Unheard’s songs were written mostly during the pandemic’s early lock-down days. “The album grew out of the insanity of that crazy time in America,” Rev says. And not just COVID, albeit “Black Hole #19,” with Rev on ukulele, is about the death of a family member from the virus. He describes “Jericho” as “about all the lying that’s gone on in the last few years—the hypocrisy of holding up the banner of being a Christian and continually lying.” The title song evokes the murder of George Floyd in the context of the centuries-long struggle for civil rights. Eannelli crafted a spooky soundscape for “Unheard” with wavering guitar pedals.
“We Could Ride” bounces along like an old-time string band as Rev grabs the key to the highway and sings of escape from confinement. “If you want to, we could run far away,” he urges, and “live by our own code.” But the album’s next track, “Wait,” is the flashing red light signaling the wrong path, the minor key folk rock amplifying a scarecrow landscape where “the folks who call you friend” will never “be there in the end.” Rev’s wailing harmonica paints the picture blue as Eannelli adds a sinister solo on electric guitar.
Eannelli describes the production as a “variety show,” with different instruments and microphones enhancing the sonic variety. Veteran Milwaukee producer Gary Tanin mastered Unheard to perfection. “We went beyond our capabilities. We were in the zone,” Eannelli says, “and I live for that!”
Lil Rev and Jim Eannelli will perform the songs from Unheard at 7 p.m. at 7 p.m., Nov. 3 at Anodyne Coffee Roasters, 224 W. Bruce Street.
Stream or download Unheard: Songs from the Street on Amazon here.
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