Hours of Enjoyment, (07/19/06)
Upon initial listening, Philipp Fankhauser's enunciation compels the listener to try and place his Central European accent. Fankhauser's guitar playing, arrangements, and songwriting quickly come into focus. Eventually this concoction comes together into an above average Blues record of heartfelt compositions. With full arrangements including horns, Fankhauser kicks off Watching from the Safe Side with a big band Swing sound on "It's Over Now Baby." By the third track our Swiss friend is leaning into the deep ballad "Too Little Too Late." "I don't doubt that you're sorry, for one moment/Now you see the errors of your ways/And the tears, they're a nice touch, sliding down your face/But it's too little, too late."

Fankhauser leans on the late Johnny Clyde Copeland for the fourth track, a rousing rendition of "Blues Ain't Nothing." He also covers Copeland's "Love Song." Throughout the album Fankhauser's guitar playing is subtle and tasty. Producer Dennis Walker writes or co-writes on four of the albums songs while Fankhauser writes on seven of the eleven tracks. On the song "The Blues Don't Like a Crowd," the band's horn section steps up to propel the song against a solid twelve bar allowing Fankhauser to step up and bust out another tasty guitar solo.
In today's political climate some musicians feel compelled to walk the line of social or political commentary. Historically very few artists have been able to successfully raise awareness of social or political issues without sounding preachy. On the song "Thomas & Rodney," Fankhauser composes a song about a barroom conversation between a Swiss and an American citizen with the refrain "One from a free land and one from the land of the free." Considering Europe's love/hate fixation with America, you can only assume it must be Tuesday in Lucerne.

While this is my first brush with Fankhauser, he does have other albums available. He is not adding anything new to the tree trunk, but he shapes his art well, moving from one styling to another, and, for some, this album will bring hours of enjoyment. He is especially adept at ballads, and Tom Peterson's horn arrangements often work to raise up this recording, too.

Rick Galusha is a contributing editor at BluesWax West Des Moines, Iowa