Jerry G. Hludzik – Just Letting It All Go 2009

erry G. Hludzik and Bill Kelly formed the classic AOR-band Dakota many years ago and has been releasing albums from time to time and the last studio album came out 2003 called Deep 6.Now Jerry is here with his debut solo album where he has got some help from his bandmates in Dakota. You can hear from the first line that there’s Dakota influences in the background but this is more of an acoustic pop/rock album with a touch of country and some AORish moments but don’t wait to hear Dakota AOR.

Jerry has a great way of finding nice melody lines and so is the case with Just Letting It All Go. The album holds 12-tracks and a big part is nice to listen to but some of the songs feels like they soundalike but they are not bad.  The album starts off with two strong songs called Hole In My Pocket (a song that reminds most of Dakota on this album) and What If.  The song Try leans more into country territory, nice one with strong vocals.  On A Day Like Today made me think of Nelsons 2nd album Because They Can.  One From The Heart is a fantastic AOR-ballad that reminds of Night Ranger back in the 80s, classy stuff and Jerry sounds like Kelly Keagy. Better Man is a nice laid-back pop song.
All For The Better is flirting with country and this is a mid-tempo song with nice piano sound in the background and the chorus has strong harmonies melodies, good song.

A very solid and relaxing album Jerry has done and I think that some Dakota fans will enjoy this but if you´re looking for an AORish album, this is not for you.
Ola did a review of another Dakota member Rick Manwiller, so the Dakota guys are still producing music. Let’s hope that we will se another
01. Hole In My Pocket
02. What’s In This Kiss
03. What If
04. Try
05. On A Day Like Today
06. One From The Heart
07. Letting It All Go
08. All For The Better
09. These 50 Years
10. Right Where I Belong
11. Better Man
12. Wind On My Whiskers

Line-Up:
Jerry G. Hludzik (Dakota) – vocals, acoustic guitar, mandolin
Jon Lorrance (Dakota) – guitars
Lenny Mecca – bass
Tom Borthwick, Joe Andes, Wes Styles – keyboards
Eli Hludzik (Dakota) – drums
Bill Kelly – backing vocals (5)
Joe Taco – percussion (11)

turbob