Album Review by C. Michael Bailey at “All About Jazz”
Los Angeles-native Johnny Stachela may be a Southern Californian, but he is one tempered by the Allman Brothers Band and baptized in Southern-fried Dixie. Influenced by the music of the late ’60s and early ’70s, Stachela presents himself as his own artist on the present EP Walk Through Fire. Stachela updates the Southern Stomp of the ’70s with a practiced precision that incorporates all of the evolution in rock music since that time. Where The Black Crowes reminded us of how good the Rolling Stones were, Stachela assimilates the whole of the southern rock experience into a form that transcends what came before without forgetting it.