Artist: Joe Jammer
Title: Life Will Be – A Song For Ukraine
File: Rock/Blues
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Ballads despairing war don’t go down well with Chicagoan Joe Wright, dubbed ‘Joe the Jammer’ by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant when he worked with them in Led Zeppelin.
Cut to mark the first anniversary of the Russian/Ukrainian War, Jammer’s single “LIFE WILL BE” is a rock workout.
Its cultural mix – blues, funk, even Mexican – suits the song’s subject; not unlike how after the heavy Soviet regulation of pop music in which the nation’s artists were prevented from absorbing Western influences, Ukrainian groups like Opalnyi Prynz became a sponge for various foreign rock influences and used their music to criticize Russia explicitly.
Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died and millions of Ukrainians have been upended from their homes in their own native land during this war.
In a first review, Tom McArdle cites the release as a “call to arms to help a people whose mortal struggle is far from over.
“Jammer’s new offering is actually about the war and the pain and the blood and the will to continue the fight until the work is done and victory against the oppressor is attained.”
Joe has worked with Jimi Hendrix and The Who and played with Paladin, Stealers Wheel and Mike Vernon’s Olympic Runners before joining forces with Procol Harum and Foghat veterans in the late 70s ‘super-group’ Nobody’s Business.
TRACKS
- LIFE WILL BE
Review of “Life Will Be” performed by Joe Jammer
By Tom McArdle
Against all odds and any predictions by foreign policy experts or media pundits, after a year of heroic fighting for their country, Ukrainians pushed Vladimir Putin’s nuclear-armed Russia into a humiliating retreat of its forces from Kyiv and the surrounding region. Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died and millions of Ukrainians have been upended from their homes in their own native land.
Despite all the months of courage and grit in unexpected magnitude, there is today little light to be seen at the end of the tunnel. Moscow is embarking on another major offensive, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awaits more arms and equipment from the United States and its European NATO neighbors.
So what’s all this got to do with rock and roll? Country singer Brad Paisley, no question a good guy, just put out a song commemorating the first anniversary of the war, and its proceeds will help displaced Ukrainians find new homes. Very laudable. But the ballad’s mellow strains go on about California and Cozumel, basically beating around the bush. With gimmicky audio of Brad and Zelenskyy on the phone lopped on at the end.
Joe Jammer’s new offering, “Life Will Be,” on the other hand, is actually about the war and the pain and the blood and the will to continue the fight until the work is done and victory against the oppressor is attained. Plus, far from mellow (as if war is ever mellow), it’s rocky and funky and bluesy all at the same time.
It begins with sirens reminiscent of what terrorized Londoners’ ears day after day during the Blitz. Soon we hear a primal howl. Has Leadbelly come back from the grave? Or Robert Johnson reappeared at the crossroads? Before long, the Jammer of Southside Chicago is serving us up a funk groove to lyrics of an anthem for a people under siege. “We’re staring down a stalemate, fighting against all odds,” he sings. “The trenches filled with suffering and still they cling to hopes.” Those words sum up better than any politician’s speech what multitudes of ordinary Ukrainians have been doing with their lives for the past year, as most of the rest of us sip latte and vegetate with the latest Netflix fare.
“Life will be when the bombs are falling,” goes the chorus. “Life will be when the lights go out. Life will be when the men are dying. Life will be when the children shout.” At the chorus’s climax we hear a few notes of Mariachi-sounding horns, as if to remind listeners that machismo is required in what is a people’s “fight for what is right” – as we hear in the lyrics a few bars later.
Joe Jammer gives us a wah wah-heavy solo that makes you visualize the Russian missiles coming down, and the song closes with the actual broadcast audio of reports of the beginnings of Putin’s rocket attacks and troop incursions. The words of the news reader echo in our ears – “death, death, death …” – until we finally hear the beats of a heart, accompanied by some gradually diminishing electric guitar string scratching. Each of those many lives lost is precious; nothing less than human life is at stake.
The cultural mix – blues, funk, even Mexican – suits the song’s subject; not unlike how after the heavy Soviet regulation of pop music in Ukraine from the 1960s to the end of the regime, in which the nation’s artists were prevented from absorbing Western influences, Ukrainian groups like Opalnyi Prynz became a sponge for various foreign rock influences and used their music to criticize Russia explicitly.
Howlin’ Wolf said, “When you ain’t got no money and can’t pay your house rent and can’t buy you no food, you damn sure got the blues … ‘cause you thinkin’ evil. Any time you thinkin’ evil you thinkin’ ‘bout the blues.” Ukrainians have spent twelve months thinking about the foreign evil that has robbed them of family members and homes. That Mississippi blues legend liked to tell audiences, “I’m guh show you how to play the blues. You just sit here an’ watch me.”
Sit down and listen to Joe Jammer, a man who for more than a half century has been steeped in the blues, and hear him play and sing a funky, bluesy, rock-and-roll call to arms to help a people whose mortal struggle is far from over.