Inside Ain’t I the Fool: How Jack Hoban Built a Blues Confession Around Bernard Purdie’s Drums
A Jersey Shore Songwriter Hands the Drums on His Blues Confession to Bernard Purdie
For one song on his 2021 album Blue Beach, Jack Hoban gave the drum stool to Bernard “Pretty” Purdie. Purdie is the session drummer who gave his name to the Purdie shuffle. That song is Ain’t I the Fool by Jack Hoban, track five of twelve, released on 31 May 2021. It is a blues about owning your mistakes, recorded with a drummer who has spent six decades making other people’s songs move.
Jack Hoban’s Ain’t I the Fool sits in the playlist below with our R&B, neo soul and soul picks, and Jack Hoban’s artist profile holds the rest of the coverage. The single reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news sites. Give it a listen first, then read on for how Bernard Purdie ended up on the drums.
Jack Hoban Recorded Blue Beach Through the Pandemic, With Bernard Purdie on Ain’t I the Fool
Blue Beach is Hoban’s second album of songs about, and inspired by, the sea. The first, BellaMar, came out in April 2020, and he returned to the same shoreline a year later. In his own notes on the album, he wrote that people call this kind of music yacht rock these days. Then he added, drily, that he does not own a yacht.
Many of the songs were written and recorded during the pandemic. He described the record as carrying both the happy and the sad feelings of that time. Life and music, in his telling, rise and fall like waves. That mood matters for Ain’t I the Fool. It is a song about looking back at your own mistakes with a straight face and a loose groove.
The album came out on Memorial Day, 31 May 2021. Hoban produced it with Steve Jankowski. Jankowski also engineered and mixed it at Jankland Recording Studio, and he played trumpet and trombone. Meanwhile, Randy Ledet played keyboards and Buddy Savino played bass, with Deb Lyons and Katie Stemkovsky on background vocals. Finally, Scott Hull mastered it at Masterdisk.
Bernard Purdie Plays Track Five of Blue Beach for a Jersey Shore Songwriter He Already Knew
The drums on Blue Beach were shared out song by song. Ilya Stemkovsky played on five tracks and Bobby Boyd on five more. Purdie played on exactly one, and it is Ain’t I the Fool.
His name carries a lot of history. He was Aretha Franklin’s musical director for five years from 1970. He also played the shuffle on Steely Dan’s Home at Last and Babylon Sisters. By most counts he has played on more than 4,000 recordings, and in 2013 the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame inducted him.
A Friendship Already on Record
Besides, Purdie was not a stranger to Hoban’s music by 2021. He produced Jersey Blue, Hoban’s jazz and blues album released in May 2020, with songs written by Hoban and Gene McCormick. In turn, Hoban wrote the songs, played guitar and co-produced Testify, a Purdie album. John Korba arranged it, and it was recorded at Lakehouse in Asbury Park and at Jankland. The two have played live together as well. In July 2021, Hoban’s YouTube channel posted clips of Purdie with Rogues on the Run at The Falcon. So when Purdie sat down to play on Ain’t I the Fool, he was playing for a songwriter he already knew well.
On Ain’t I the Fool, Jack Hoban Answers Heartache With Blue-Eyed Soul Swagger, Not Self-Pity
Hoban’s own songwriting has always leaned towards the blues. Alongside his solo records he plays with his band, Rogues on the Run, a jazz and blues outfit from the Jersey Shore. The band has played local venues and festivals and opened for BB King, and their retrospective album covers 1996 to 2015. Today he is based between New Jersey and Hawaii, and he writes everything from ballads to jazz-flavoured adult contemporary songs.
Ain’t I the Fool sits where those two lives meet: AOR polish, blue-eyed soul phrasing and a blues subject. Zillions Magazine heard a song that treats the blues as a badge of honour rather than a reason to sulk. In its reading, the lyric looks back at missed chances in love and chooses honesty about mistakes over self-pity. The same review singled out Hoban’s guitar as intense but smooth, and his voice as smoky and self-assured. It also named Purdie’s drumming as the thing that keeps the whole song moving.
In the end, that is the answer the song gives. It admits the foolishness in the title, laughs at it a little, and keeps the groove going anyway.
For Listeners Who Know Steely Dan and Hall & Oates
The comparisons almost suggest themselves, because Purdie has played for both. Steely Dan built their late-1970s albums on session players of exactly his calibre. His shuffle on Home at Last is part of why Aja still sounds so easy to live with. Hall & Oates used him on Abandoned Luncheonette in 1973, and the Philadelphia duo’s mix of rock, soul and rhythm and blues made them one of blue-eyed soul’s best-known names. Listeners who love either will find the same instincts in Ain’t I the Fool. The songwriting comes first, the drummer never overplays, and the vocal has a smile in it.
From the NewMusic.News Curator Team: “Ain’t I the Fool gives Bernard Purdie five and a half minutes and a song that knows how to laugh at itself. Jack Hoban wrote a confession and recorded it like a celebration, and that is the right call for a blues this honest.”
Where to Hear Jack Hoban and Ain’t I the Fool
Stream Jack Hoban on Spotify, Apple Music, Bandcamp and SoundCloud, and find Blue Beach on Deezer. His videos, including the Blue Beach uploads and the live clips with Purdie, sit on his YouTube channel. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook and X, and read about the rest of his catalogue on his official site.
