Long Island Entertainment April,1998

Makana • J-Bird Records. Tony Barca isn't a kid and he's not fooling around. I don't think, after all, that you invite dudes like The Uptown Horns onto your album if you're not out to make a serious album. The rest of the support players are all well- schooled too, that'll be obvious in a hurry.

Barca has put together 13 tracks that seem to be his bid for status as our regional Jimmy Buffett. Tracks like "The Way That We Dance" seem like they'd please both parrotheads and doo-woppers, while the opening "Fatherhood" is Closer to a traditional blues groove. "My Baby’s Gone Hollywood" goes yet another direction, a swinger that will remind many of the groove we came to love with "Take Me To The River" whether it was Al Green or the Talking Heads that you leaned to. Barca is a solid, if understated singer, but he knows how to write and arrange well-textured and layered songs with the best of them. Makana has a big sound and outstanding recording values to go with the sophisticated grooves.

Barca is anything but what you'd expect to find on an indie label these days, he's aiming at an audience that buys big label stuff after they've heard it on K-Joy a few hundred times, so it'll be interesting to see if Barca has figured out a way to get to the audience that demands perfection before they reach for their wallet. Musically, he's certainly upheld his end of the bargain. There’s nothing new here, but on the upside, you just can't do this sound any better than this.

—Fred Frankel—