Just Like Love (Remastered) Steve Strauss

• 1Just Like Love04:49
• 2Angel05:59
• 3Youngstown05:08
• 4Old Crow05:33
• 5Dead Man's Handle05:58
• 6Jennie Mae03:52
• 7Brother Mule04:56
• 8Sunday Best03:55
• 9The Dirt04:21
• 10Lord Franklin04:11
• 11Closer04:15
• 12The Dog and the Dancing Girl04:54
• 13A Western06:35
• Total Runtime01:04:26

Info for Just Like Love (Remastered)

With “Powderhouse Road“, Steve Strauss proved himself to be a singer/songwriter of remarkable depth of feeling and sensitivity. This is also true of Just Like Love. The songs of Steve Strauss are, once again, not exactly easy to approach. Maybe some elements of his art can be attributed to his job as a social worker in Vestal, NY. Bitter-sweet melancholy, but also a trace of cynicism gets hold of the listener at the same time.

Steve Strauss sings "about longing. And reaching. And touching. And losing. And then doing it all over again..."

Steve Strauss with his laid-back style of guitar playing (a quality further developed by fellow Stockfisch musicians like Chris Jones) is none other than – a poet. You can feel this when he sings of the golden era of youth spent in the shadow of the Argyle Bridge when war was only real “in far-off countries”. You can feel this when in “Angel”– in the beginning meant to be a comment on life in New York, which after September 11th reached an even deeper level of meaning – he sings of emptiness, loneliness, homelessness.

In Just Like Love Strauss creates a mixture of traditional tunes and touchingly naive lyrics (“Sunday Best”) and critical views of society (as in his cover version of the Springsteen classic “Youngstown”). While even in “Jerusalem” (“Powderhouse Road”) he sounded a bit like T.S. Eliot’s poem "The Journey of the Magi”, the title track “Just Like Love” and the cryptic “The Dirt” are introspective musings, and Steve’s play reaches a dreamlike intensity.

Steve Strauss, vocals, guitar
Chris Jones, guitars, dobro
Christina Lux, backing vocals
Hrolfur Vagnsson, accordion
Jean-Marie Peschiutta, mandolin
Michael Kleinhans, tuba
Hans-Jörg Maucksch, fretless bass
Grischka Zepf, electric bass
Beo Brockhausen, saxophones, glass harp, flute, gaida, bagpipes, autoharp, sarod, percussion

Steve Strauss
has been a singer/songwriter for more than twenty-five years. Powderhouse Road, Steve's first collection of songs, was released in 1998 after a serendipitous collision of events brought him to the attention of Germany's audiophile folk label Stockfisch Records. Steve followed up with Just Like Love in 2004, and then spent several years honing his electric guitar skills with jam band Monkeys Typing (still known to emerge every now and again for a show in their home town of Binghamton, NY). Steve's latest Stockfisch release Sea of Dreams showcases the union of his songwriting with his love of the electric guitar. Steve (aka "That Guy with the Gretsch") currently fattens up his folky oeuvre with his bluesy combo Strauss & Co.

Booklet for Just Like Love (Remastered)