It took a while, but John Bass got here. Now in the third decade of his career as guitarist and educator, Bass just recorded his debut album. “I’ve been threatening to make a record for almost as long as I can remember,” he notes, “and writing songs for even longer than that.” He was particularly inspired by a new course he’s been teaching at Rhodes College, “Songwriting in Memphis.” The course “really made me put my money where my mouth is,” he admits, although this was only the catalyst for a long-gestating idea. “The best reason I can come up with for making a record and having folks hear a new side of me musically is that it’s just time.”

The timing couldn’t be better. The eight songs on Nowhere In Between reflect years of work in developing his craft as singer, player, and songwriter, and they are particularly rooted in the sounds and experiences of his adopted home. Memphis is everywhere on this album, often in conversation with Bass’s former home of Mobile and (despite the title) with all the physical and artistic places that he’s been along the way. Themes of home and travel – always deeply connected, despite their seeming opposition – recur throughout the album, as Bass reckons with what it means to find yourself somewhere or to wish you could leave. Recorded at the city’s Archer Studios with expert engineer Kevin Houston, Nowhere In Between feels like both a homecoming and a road heading out in new directions for this restlessly creative musician.

Although Nowhere In Between is the product of Bass’s singular vision, that vision includes the participation of a group of collaborators. “Early on, it was important for me to make a record with friends and colleagues I have met while in Memphis,” he says. “I knew if they said yes, what they brought would make these songs something more.” This community doubles as a Memphis all-star team. The core rhythm section of bassist John McClure, keyboardist Pat Fusco, and drummer Tom Lonardo are joined by names that are instantly recognizable to any fan of contemporary Memphis music, from Southern Avenue’s Tierinii and Tikyra Jackson to saxophonist Jim Spake and beyond. But their presence isn’t just stunt casting: Bass makes room for each musician to add their distinctive talent in a way that feels both precise and natural. “That’s what I like the most about listening to it—everyone sounds like themselves!”

The songs on which they appear reflect Bass’s wide range of musical interests. “Grind” opens the album with a bracing mix of ‘90s rock and Memphis funk, supported by the voices of the Jackson sisters. The Southern Avenue duo also animates the simmering R&B of “Make Me Believe,” the smooth luxury of which situates it between George Benson and Al Green. Bass further explores the jazz-soul continuum on the album’s two instrumentals, a post-MGs groover called “It’s Going,” and the closing-time smokiness of “Live Oak.” Country comes through on “Keep Off The Median,” an evocative Mobile-Memphis travelogue with Tamar Love providing warmly supportive cello, and the raucous “Why Do I Love You?,” where guest vocalists Louise Page and Charles Hughes join Bass – plus pedal steel and electric guitar from John Whittemore – in a rowdy honky-tonk barnstormer. And it all blends together on the brooding “River Walk,” which brings gospel symbolism and epic balladry into the mix as Bass and the musicians chart a troubled trip “on the road to Memphis.”

Speaking of roads to Memphis, the one cover is a distinctive spin on Human Radio’s 1990 hit “Me and Elvis.” Bass says he “remembered the video from MTV as a kid, but I had no idea that [singer-songwriter] Ross Rice wrote it until years later hearing him sing it in a club on a Thursday night in midtown Memphis.” Rather than a straight re-creation, Bass transforms Human Radio’s driving remix of that most foundational of local rock mythologies into a piano-driven meditation on the past. Instead of his guitar, Bass here centers the piano, which pulls and pulses as Bass’s voice rises from low sweetness to high-lonesome swoon. Jim Spake’s saxophone enters for a brief instrumental section adds an additional resonant response, and “Me and Elvis” becomes a fitting microcosm for the album’s larger stylistic sweep and thematic meditations.

Nowhere In Between is an album about home – not just the artist’s or his collaborators’, but those places of origin and landing that any audience member will recognize no matter where they’re located. Through its deeply affecting songs, Bass offers a series of lessons in how to get where we’re going, even if the destination changes or the paths aren’t clear. By the end of Nowhere in Between, we’ve all arrived somewhere. We’re here.

by Charles Hughes

Author, Country Soul: Making Music and Making Race in the American South and Why Bushwick Bill Matters Co-Founder of “No Fences Review” Podcast