By Malcolm X Abram
Beacon Journal music writer
”Westside” Steve Simmons is well known to longtime local music fans. Throughout the 70s he fronted Easy Street — one of the most popular bar rock bands of the era.
The band broke up in the mid-80s, but its annual fall reunion shows at Akron’s Tangier (on Nov. 13 this year) still draw big crowds of fans and friends.
But these days, Simmons, 57, is still playing music for folks in bars. He’s just doing it solo as one of the mainstays in Put-in-Bay’s bar scene, performing regularly at the Crescent Tavern as well as at shows at other bars in Put-In-Bay and locally for the past 22 years.
When he’s not mixing traditional Irish folks songs with traditional drinking tunes, a few classic rock covers and of course the boomer bar anthem Margaritaville, he writes and records original music and his takes on traditional American and Irish tunes.
Simmons’ new album, Limestone Cowboy (his previous album Winward Crossing came out three years ago), shows a different side of Simmons. Untethered by the need to keep the drunks happy with songs they know, Simmons indulges his singer/songwriter side.
”It’s a different mindset when I’m up here playing my live show,” Simmons said from the stage of the Crescent Tavern where he was in the middle of his gig as the ”daytime anchor.”
”When I’m up here I’ll play a lot of Irish folks songs and Jimmy Buffet and Bob Seger, some country and western and call and response kind of stuff. But when I’m writing for one of my CDs it’s the singer/songwriter side of me, not the beer-drinking and hell-raising side,” he said laughing.
Fans of Simmons’ Put-in-Bay shows may miss his gregarious personality, but if they enjoy his powerful tenor and his ability to write new songs in classic, traditional styles then they should enjoy Limestone Cowboy.
Simmons recorded the album in his basement studio with help from friends Paul and Peggy Baker of Bridgid’s Cross, who contribute fiddle and vocals, respectively.
The album opens with a brief sea-chanty-style ode to rum before giving way to The Battle of Lake Erie (also colloquially known as The Battle of Put-In-Bay). It’s a historically accurate and musical recounting of the famous naval battle of the War of 1812.
The baker’s dozen of tracks include familiar tunes such as a traditional arrangement of Sloop John B, an elegiac take on the well-known melody of Red Is the Rose/Loch Lomand and an Easy Street-style rockin’ R&B horn-driven version of Dirty Old Town.
In a nod to his day job, he includes the easy-going Carribean-flavored Island Time and the quirky and jaunty love song (I Will Buy You) a Hen about a man’s desperate attempt to reclaim his lost love through the purchase of a multitalented hen:
”She will dance the fandango. She will shine like a rainbow, She will write you a rhyme.”
Simmons may have never got the chance to live out his rock star dreams but rather than hold on to unnecessary bitterness about the past, Simmons is sanguine about what could have been and he loves the present.
”There’s a point in your life as an entertainer when reality sets in,” he said. ”In your 20s you think, ‘I could be Springsteen, this could happen for us.’ Then as time goes on you realize that you’re not going to ‘make it.’
”But I’m 57. I still live in the Akron area and there’s not a day that goes by that I play and don’t enjoy it.
”I thank God every day I’m alive to do this.”
Limestone Cowboy is available at http://www.westsidesteve.com, iTunes, and CDbaby.com.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
Read Soundcheck, the blog by Malcolm X Abram.