{"id":142944,"date":"2023-12-11T10:04:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T18:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=142944"},"modified":"2023-12-11T09:01:37","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T17:01:37","slug":"review-tom-heymans-24th-street-blues-paints-an-unflinching-musical-portrait-of-san-franciscos-mission-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/review-tom-heymans-24th-street-blues-paints-an-unflinching-musical-portrait-of-san-franciscos-mission-district\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Tom Heyman\u2019s \u201824th Street Blues\u2019 Paints an Unflinching Musical Portrait of San Francisco\u2019s Mission District"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><br><\/strong>Back in the late 1980s and early \u201990s, guitarist Tom Heyman\u2019s Philadelphia-based band Go to Blazes released five albums of hard-edged alt-country that never got the respect they deserved. In the years since, Heyman has paid his dues as a sideman (with the likes of Chuck Prophet, John Doe, and Alejandro Escovedo) and bandleader while also developing his chops as a solo artist, releasing six more records under his own name. With <em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3GqMWOO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">24th Street Blues<\/a><\/em>, Heyman is hitting his late-night, post-bartending groove, writing about loneliness, alienation, and \u201cthe true cost of love\u201d in San Francisco\u2019s Mission District, where he\u2019s lived since 1998.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"750\" height=\"750\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Tom-Heyman-24th-St-Blues-cover.jpg?resize=750%2C750&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Tom-Heyman-24th-St-Blues-cover\" class=\"wp-image-142945\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Tom-Heyman-24th-St-Blues-cover.jpg?w=750&amp;ssl=1 750w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Tom-Heyman-24th-St-Blues-cover.jpg?resize=500%2C500&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Tom-Heyman-24th-St-Blues-cover.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Tom-Heyman-24th-St-Blues-cover.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Tom Heyman, <em>24th St. Blues<\/em> (<a href=\"http:\/\/tomheymanmusic.net\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">tomheymanmusic.net<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Heyman\u2019s real-life character studies are the barflies, bohemians, hustlers, junkies, and unhoused families that line the streets, and the stories they inspire are appropriately desperate, filled with loss and poverty and colored by the struggle of living beneath the construction cranes that dot the horizon. In \u201cBarbara Jean,\u201d a young woman returns to her old life to take care of her dying bartender father and finds herself unable to leave again, eternally stuck behind the counter on the morning shift. In \u201cSonny Jim,\u201d there\u2019s a boy who loses everything he\u2019s got and has no place left to turn\u2014another player in a game with no winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Tom Heyman  24th Street Blues\" width=\"1290\" height=\"726\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PJ4TBfVZ2sU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cGive me silence, give me sleep\/ soft and gentle, dark and deep,\u201d sings the character in \u201cLike a Lion,\u201d praying for the time he finally outruns his past, and even if we know that day won\u2019t ever come, Heyman takes a pedal-steel solo that promises something better when the sun rises again. It\u2019s a bright gray light in a neon world, and whatever instrument Heyman grabs\u2014a Martin 0-18, Harmony Sovereign, Guild F-45 12-string, hollow-body Silvertone 1446, Danelectro baritone, or GFI Ultra pedal steel\u2014he makes these stories count, knocking out three-chord songs that pack a mighty punch.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[<a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3t6owqP\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">An illustrated songbook<\/a> including transcriptions of the album\u2019s 11 songs is available separately.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heyman\u2019s real-life character studies are the barflies, bohemians, hustlers, junkies, and unhoused families that line the streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":142946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Heyman\u2019s real-life character studies are the barflies, bohemians, hustlers, junkies, and unhoused families that line the streets.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[885],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1568],"class_list":["post-142944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-album-reviews"],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/Tom-Heyman.jpg?fit=750%2C579&ssl=1","authors":[{"term_id":1568,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"kenny-berkowitz","display_name":"Kenny Berkowitz","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Kenny-Berkowitz-Photo_web.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Kenny-Berkowitz-Photo_web.jpg"},"user_url":"","last_name":"","first_name":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142944"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143011,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142944\/revisions\/143011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142944"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=142944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}