Rock & Roll American is a song combining a feeling of nostalgia with a feeling of modern disillusionment by Phoenix-based artist Allan Jamisen, which combines the swagger of classic rock and thoughtful, well-developed lyricism. Inspired by the spirit of the countercultural icons of Elvis to Iggy Pop, Jamisen manages to produce a song that feels both eternal and distinctly up to date, one that brings a pinpointed commentary to the disintegrated state of the modern America.
The song is a masterpiece in terms of musical balance. Grabs of swaggering guitar riffs and twangifying licks would recall the golden era of rock n roll and hazy psychedelic flourishes and soulful backing vocals add depth and colour. The vocal of Jamisen is the center of everything all the melody but worn out, bearing the burden of the themes he addresses, being as crooner and as rebel. Produced by Danny Saber (Rolling Stones, David Bowie) the song glistens once more on its staccato rhythm style, to its sky-gazing fade-out, fading like a dream remembered half-awakening.
Rock and Roll American is lyrically a reflection on the gone utopias. Jamisen contemplates the gap between the America he used to believe in and America of today in which the fundamental values are twisted or forsaken. But the song is against the cynic; it belongs to that hard-minded optimism - to the belief that the insurrectionary spirit may not be so easily put out. The feeling flows into the music itself, rejuvenating the savage power of the rock of the 60s and 70s without ever falling into parody.
To a versatile artist such as Jamisen, a painter and a musician influenced by Motown, art rock and European avant-garde, this single would be a conclusion of his artistic path. It is the rock and roll as seen through the eyes of a painter, heard through the ears of a poet and performed with the well-worn hand of an old man. Rock and Roll American does not just go back to the past, but struggles with it, trying to find out what remains worth saving.
