Macon musician releasing ‘soul-stirring’ debut album

You know from the short, opening track of Angel Ocasio Jr.’s debut album it’s going to be a good ride.

The song, “Lone Road (Intro),” lopes along first with a simple dobro coupled quickly with a distorted synth bass growl and sweet orchestral fill, giving the feeling you’re cruising a long, open stretch of sweeping highway.

Lonesome whistling comes in, making you wonder if, instead, you might be walking a solitary country road.

The minute-and-a-half tune is full of feeling and cinematic mood.

But that’s what Ocasio said his playing is about: he said he plays by feel – though his technical prowess is extreme – and he said he’s after the feeling he can evoke in his audiences – other humans traveling their own roads.

The name of the album is “The Road Home” and there’s a release party Saturday at 9 p.m. at Grant’s Lounge featuring Ocasio and his musical collective, Cash’s Juke Joint.

Ocasio is a Macon multi-talented, multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriter who shines on guitar and stands out playing pedal steel guitar.

He likes to call his music “soul-stirring, wrapped around the blues,” and he rocks whatever he’s doing, from blues to soul, spirituals, swing, funk, rock, even heartfelt ballads.

“The Road Home” is being called Ocasio’s debut album, but he’s been in studios recording since before his preteens and has played in front of people since he was seven.

Therein lies the tale, and it starts in church.

Early days

“There I was, a little kid sitting next to my mom in church like I always did, not thinking about anything, especially not thinking about music or playing it,” Ocasio told me in a phone conversation. He was in Atlanta showing off the new album.

“I was just sitting there by my mom and my uncle, Uncle Big, who was a huge influence in my life, came over and told me to come up and play,” Ocasio said. “Uncle Big played different instruments and he and my Uncle Harris were the only ones playing. He was on bass and my Uncle Harris was on drums. Uncle Big took me to the piano, showed me Middle C, and told me to just keep playing that. That was the start of my musical journey.”

Uncle Big’s actual name is Elihue Donaldson, Jr.; Uncle Harris is Harris Donaldson.

Uncle Big showed him more things, chords and whatnot, and young Ocasio started taking lessons. Considered a piano player at that young age, he played with church and gospel groups and later learned saxophone and how to read music in school. He was even a drumline drummer.

All that developed his interest in music, he said, but music wasn’t his passion. 

That passion was soon to come.

Sacred steel

We have to take a minute to talk about sacred steel, a worship tradition developed in a handful of Pentecostal denominations beginning around the 1930s. In those days, in popular culture, Hawaiian tunes and newfangled electric lap steel guitars with pickups were becoming the fad. I happen to own an old Oahu lap steel and amp that doesn’t go back to those earliest days but was manufactured by a Hawaiian sheet music publishing company that made instruments alongside.

In that handful of churches, lap steel then pedal steel guitars took the place of organs as the main congregational worship instrument. In so doing, they opened the door for electric guitars in sanctuaries long before Jesus Music and Contemporary Christian Music showed up in the 1970s.

This long tradition produced modern sacred steel players who appreciated feeling and closeness to God above all else, though outstanding technical musicians emerged. Some popular musicians in the wider culture took note and were influenced by the soulful playing, akin to slide guitar playing. Some say it’s true of Duane Allman. By the late 1900s, a few sacred steel players began leaking into the wider popular music scene, notably Chuck and Darick of The Campbell Brothers and Robert Randolph of Robert Randolph and the Family Band. The Campbells toured with the Allman Brothers Band. Randolph, aside from being in his own spotlight, was on stage and in the studio with everybody from Eric Clapton to Los Lobos to Ringo Starr to Dave Matthews to Ozzy Osbourne.

Randolph and the Campbells were from the House of God Church association, the same sacred steel-oriented church Ocasio’s grandmother was pastor of in Nashville, Georgia, where he grew up and where he was taken by the hand to a piano when he was seven. 

And where, just a few years later, his attention was drawn at church conferences to steel and electric guitar players, Darick Campbell in particular. It was then that a true passion was ignited, one that still burns.

A musical path

As a kid, Ocasio’s path led him to playing in churches, at denominational gatherings and with gospel groups often connected to his uncle. He said he cut an album with The Gospel Travelers called “Mustard Seed” when he was eight or nine and many more followed. Whether playing steel guitar or keyboards, by his late teens, Ocasio was solidly a church musician, a music director and a well-connected musician with gospel groups. He always played what he felt and said at times that meant rocking a little harder than was the norm. That meant occasional scowls from pastors and others encouraging him to tone it down.

Randolph and the Campbells experienced the same, with the Campbells being ostracized from churches in the early 2000s after playing with rock bands.

Times change and Ocasio never suffered that fate and said even now he plays organ in Macon for Greater New Bethel Baptist Church.

“But when I was growing up, I never got to listen to music on BET or a lot of popular stuff,” he said. “Of course I’m influenced by a lot of guitarists, but when someone tells me something I do sounds like Hendrix, I think of Henry Mable who was a great guitarist in church and an influence and mentor. He was my Hendrix.”

As Ocasio’s non-church music interests developed, five years ago he began what he calls the music collective known as Cash’s Juke Joint, a revolving group of musicians that always includes Ocasio, or Cash as he’s nicknamed, and near-life-long friend and drummer, JD Dunn.

On the new album, Dunn plays drums, guest Blind Dog Mayer plays harmonica and Ocasio plays guitar, steel guitar, keyboards and everything else. And there’s a lot of everything else. A whole lot.

Ocasio is 35 now, so do the math on how long he’s been playing, though only a few of them in this new direction. In all that time, he’s become what I call a phenomenal, well-rounded guitarist/pedal steel player who plays with ease and a oneness with his instrument.

I first saw him about three years ago at a show promoting mental health initiatives and I was doing double-take after double-take. The three-piece band was creating a firestorm of good music, first double-take, and he was playing hard rock and blues on a good ole’ Gretsch guitar, second double-take, then there was the unbelievable way he incorporated a soaring pedal steel in a number of songs, third big double-take, and then just the good vibe from him obviously having a whole lot of fun playing and entertaining. I became a fan, and I think a fan for good reasons. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ocasio is one of the next big things to come out of Macon.

The road home

Disclosure: I have, in fact, gotten to know Ocasio these past several years, but that hasn’t colored my initial impression of his talent. It has shown me that he’s, at heart, a surprisingly humble guy who doesn’t boast about his abilities but says he’s still learning, just trying to give his audiences the best music he can and hopefully make a connection. He said there’s still a deep spirituality in his music and believes what talent he has “comes from above.”

Ocasio said the name of the album is significant because he doesn’t remove it from where he’s come from and all those who have poured into his life through the years.

“I still love to play after all these years and if I find I’m not enjoying it because of the business side and all that, I have to stop and adjust,” he said. “I love going to the Sunday night jams at Grant’s whenever I can and just playing with others for the fun of it. And maybe I can give back and teach something to the kids just coming up. I play my way, that’s what I’ve always done it and what I have to do, not because I think I’m so great or that what I do is all that matters, but I just have to play what’s in me and how I figure things out. If I don’t, I do lose the joy.”

Ocasio just won the International Singer-Songwriter Association’s Musician of the Year Gold Award, an indication of where he’s headed. I recommend going to his site and seeing other awards and his tour schedule and how he’s getting more and more “impressive” gigs and how he’s being invited to more and more “important” blues and other festivals. And also, how he’s still happy to pop into Grant’s, Crooked Finger Brewing over in Dublin and littler gigs for the enjoyment of playing for pretty much whoever wants to hear.

Ocasio is on social media and “The Road Home” is on streaming platforms. His site is cashsjukejoint.com and Grant’s is historicgrants.com. There are links to tickets for Saturday’s release party at both.

Contact Pannell at mwpannell@gmail.com. Find him on Instagram at michael_w_pannell.