Search - Mindy Jostyn :: Five Miles From Hope

Mindy Jostyn plays guitar, violin, mandolin, harmonica and accordion, and she has toured the world as a backing musician for Billy Joel, Joe Jackson, Donald Fagen and John Mellencamp. Jostyn's debut solo album, --Five Miles from Hope, features a duet with Carly Simon, collaborations with Fagen and Garth Hudson and a dozen songs co-written with Simon's longtime lyricist, Jacob Brackman. As one might guess from this resume, Jostyn writes and sings middle-aged, middle-brow, midtempo pop-rock. She does so quite competently, though not nearly as well as her former employers. Jostyn possesses a modest but pleasing soprano which is more impressive when it's relaxed and wistful than when it's strained and strident. Her songs are full of cheerful, chipper melodies, none of which are especially memorable. She's at her worst when she adopts an unconvincing rock'n'roll attitude, as on the gospel number "Take It as a Sign," or when she's ruminating on such impossibly vague metaphors as "White Magic (Called Love)." She's at her best when she zeroes in on a specific incident in a specific place--for example, the romantic break-up on Long Island recalled in "All Roads" or the hotel-room homesickness described in "So Far from Anywhere"--where her tasteful professionalism is put to good use.--Geoffrey Himes