Bob Malone }-- Reviews

"The only reason I began to tour solo was because I couldn’t afford to take a band on the road," writes singer-songwriter and pianist Bob Malone in the liner notes to his recent unaccompanied CD, Malone Alone. "It was not borne of a desire to attain the transcendence of hearing my songs in their pristine, stripped-to-the-bone state, nor an attempt to capture the purity of the lone acoustic warrior against the harsh elements of the honky-tonk road."

Still, Malone more than pulls it off, connecting with audiences from Santa Cruz, Calif., to Sudbury, Mass., via his self-depreciatingly witty banter and songs with titles such as "I Know He’s Your Husband" and "I Don’t Like Little Kids," sung with an affable misanthropy that recalls Randy Newman and Tom Waits. He’s also a dazzlingly skilled pianist who can remind listeners of Dr. John or Mose Allison. A road veteran who has operated for years outside the mainstream, Malone was voted one of the best unsigned artists in Los Angeles for five years in a row by Music Connection Magazine. More recently, Malone Alone has enjoyed some hang time on the monthly radio charts of Roots Music Report and Living Blues.