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REVIEW: NEW ALBUM BY TOM JURAVICH

(David Kameras)My first real introduction to Tom Juravich was at the 2006 UMWA Convention in Las Vegas, when he and his remarkably tight band rocked the house with musical tales of workers’ struggles that went well beyond the usual labor chestnuts. On his latest release, Altar of the Bottom Line, Juravich opens a window on the personal stories of real-life workers, showing a remarkable ability to get into the heads and hearts of his subjects while inviting his listeners to come along for the ride.
        Among the original compositions on this engaging cd, “Immigrants Like Me” uses a haunting acoustic blues background and equally haunting harmonies by vocalist Teresa Healy to demonstrate the self-awareness of typically exploited workers as they try to survive the attacks of a society that condemns their status even as it pays them cheap for “the work nobody wants.” A single mom who wanted to be a teacher is stuck instead doing telemarketing in a “Factory of Broken Dreams.” In the title cut, a victim of outsourcing and capital flight yearns wistfully for “a time when a man could make his own fate,” as the band kicks out some serious country rock riffs. And on it goes, from a coal miner displaced by a scab operation pledging to “fight ‘em like hell,” to public service workers taking the heat after their budgets are slashed, to a swing shift hospital worker too exhausted to remember to eat.
        Sponsored by 17 American unions, Altar of the Bottom Line is the musical component of a five-year project that entailed interviews with more than 100 workers in kitchens, coffee shops and break rooms. A book with the same title based on these interviews is due out this year.
        This is social anthropology in the first person. Like author Studs Terkel before him, Brother Juravich never gets in the way of a good story–he lets the worker’s voice come through, ably assisted by Juravich’s skills as an evocative songwriter and musician.

Ed. note--Readers interested in listening to samples of the songs on the album and/or buying the CD can do so at http://www.tomjuravich.com/altar/

David Kameras is Communications Coordinator for the United Mine Workers of America. He is also a songwriter and musician in Middlefish Pond, whose recent release Last Chance to Breathe is available at http://cdbaby.com/cd/middlefishpond.