Ashley, Greg

***"GREG ASHLEY’s 4th album under his own name, his first since 2009’s Requiem Mass (Birdman), signals yet another change in direction for this multi-instrumentalist / producer / arranger / singer / songwriter / bandleader. Death of a Ladies' Man is a reverential song-for-song treatment of Leonard Cohen’s least ‘reverential’ album: the 1977 Phil Spector-produced album of the same name. Greg’s cover photo replaces actual women with two mannequins, but in almost every other way Greg’s stripped down arrangements with a basic bar band lineup give the original animal more human warmth, making the album more accessible than it’s ever been behind that bloated fortress Phil built. Ultimately, Ashley’s Death of a Ladies' Man pays tribute to the songwriting team of Cohen/Spector. Greg’s rock and roll background informs his Death of a Ladies' Man, but the tenderness, and the mid-life crisis evident in Cohen’s lyrics is highlighted, and conveys the meaning of the songs in ways even Cohen might appreciate. Greg also brings the sensibility he honed in the Oakland bar circuit, and his country-tinged ‘One Thin Heroine/ Misery Again’ single (Mexican Summer), to make ‘Fingerprints’ a much more convincing country rocker than it does in Spector’s version.”—Chris Stroffolino, from the liner notes. Edition of 500 copies with download code.