The latest volley to flash across my musical bow comes from Blossom, Texas-born Jeremy Pheifer, who, with that non-Country music-sounding name, brings us “Take the L Out Of Lover”. Not only is his name non-traditional Country, but so is his look. To me, he appears to be enforcing the guitar into the song, rather than playing it. Hunched-over his axe on the dropbox video (which I can only link here as wordpress does not support a viewable upload apparently), I can see why he used to be a bouncer and American football defensive/wide receiver! Sports and music are this hunk’s two major personal passions and his touch on guitar is surprisingly tender at times. https://www.dropbox.com/s/am9toib48bsqcd8/TakeTheLOuttaLoverc.mov
Physical presence notwithstanding, the hook lyric, “If you take the ‘L’ out of lover and its over…” is clever and true. I can think of a couple similes like, “take the ‘M’ out of mother and its “other”, or “take the “N” out of never and its ever…” But I guess I digress as only a wordsmith would. None in love want to remove the “L”! Indeed, it might be over. Can you relate? Tell your story in our comments section, ok?
This latest single is the culmination of Jeremy’s life hurdles and struggles which include losing his baby sister as a child and special educational challenges with reading. Music runs in his blood as his dad, Jerry is a legend in the state of Texas, who has is own studio and is the backbone of his band on pedal steel.
Jeremy Phifer and the Texas Bad Water Band, with a sound he describes as “Lynyrd Skynyrd on cornbread meets Alabama”, has toured all over the Texas/Oklahoma casino circuit and from Paris to Dallas in The Lone Star State itself. Apparently however, it was not until they “put together a team of pros from the New York/Los Angeles music city of the south, Nashville, that the lyrical aspirations began to move forward for this young entertainer.
I give “Take the L out Of Lover” three (3) bold Pajama Bar stars *** out of a possible five, mainly for the creativity of the title and conceptual play on words. What do I know, it’ll probably be a smash!
If I were him, I would just use “Jeremy” as my stage name and polish-up my act not to look so ordinarily “just off of the truck”. Yet again, having spent many-a-day in Nashville, I understand that J.P. surely sounds different when said by a southerner, and his father and nine-year-old son who is pickin’-up in his footsteps would give him grief if he did that, lol. As Jeremy put it after a recent gig where all three shared the Elks Loge stage in Paris, Texas, “To have three generations of Phifers playing together is a memory I’ll cherish forever”. Just remember, if you take the ‘for’ out of forever it is “ever”.
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