SONG OF THE DAY / REVIEW

Thursday July 10, 2008

Josh Fix: A One-Man Band Says Goodbye
'Free at Last' by Josh Fix
By Marc Silver


In "Free at Last," Josh Fix sounds like a hybrid of Queen's Freddie Mercury and Elton John, melding bombast with genuine sorrow.

NPR.org, July 10, 2008 - "Free at Last" is a spurned lover's declaration of independence from the woman who dumped him: a finely orchestrated power ballad, sung at a deliberate pace and dedicated to the proposition that he's through with her, even though she's come back around. In case she has any doubts, he borrows Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous phrase. But Fix has a hard time staying on message, as he goes on to play a moody guitar solo and whistle a melancholy tune that reveals him as a secret yearner.



A singer, composer, guitarist, and whistler (not to mention keyboardist, percussionist, synthesizer player, record producer, album-cover designer, and provider of "additional engineering"), the 30-year-old Fix probably sews his own clothes from cotton he's grown. A South African who came to the U.S. when he was 11, he sounds like a hybrid of Queen's Freddie Mercury and Elton John as he melds bombast with genuine sorrow, soaring over choral backgrounds that (naturally) also stem from the vocal cords of one Josh Fix. Yet despite his clear influences, he sounds like nobody but himself: a young man wistfully telling an old flame that he's free at last.

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