Dave Gleason & The Golden Cadillacs live at Amoeba Music SF July 10, 2010

Timelessness can't be manufactured. Music either cuts across the years, feeling right at home in yesteryear AND the unfolding now, or it doesn't. From the get-go, Dave Gleason has crafted songs and executed them in a way that hums timelessly, country rock that'd fit in fine on a scratchy old turntable at Merle Travis’ house, blasting from an 8-track player in Waylon Jennings' pickup truck, or serenading crowds during intermission at a Tom Petty show today. Gleason strikes down to country's hard beating heart and draws out the stuff that's made folks turn to this music for comfort and delight since it wandered out of the Appalachias in the 1930s.
Gleason's new long-player, Turn and Fade, coalesces his many charms into his strongest, toughest song cycle to date. Turning the guitar roar up a notch or two, Gleason muses on the things that keep us up at night and the things that keep us moving over the next horizon. This is music for living on the ground, a soundtrack to carry us from paycheck to paycheck and coax a smile from the most down-turned days.

Gleason first began honing his craft in the fertile crucible of the San Francisco Bay Area, exploring what a modernized California country sound might be. A few years back he rolled south
into Los Angeles and Ventura, where he's continued to explore the lingering possibilities of Nashville, Bakersfield, and Topanga Canyon. It's a move that's toughened up his sound and fully unleashed his inner shredder, two things in full flower on Turn and Fade, which moves Gleason into the company of enduring stalwarts like Chuck Prophet, Peter Case, and Kevn Kinney, as well as solidifying his place as one of the torchbearers for Merle Haggard, the Louvin Brothers, The Byrds, and other country pillars.

Not everyone can sell a line like, "If you're going through hell, then stop by and see me," yet Gleason makes it seem effortless on Turn and Fade, where the Neon and the Wine washes over us in a vaguely baptismal way. The hurt of living and the healing of it lies in these grooves, the ache of lonely nights and the grip of the Blue Side of the World, but also something that makes your boots shuffle and inspires you to buy another round for everyone.