by Steve Baylin

He sings down and out songs for hard times or no times, and everything in between. Rock and roll anthems about the bruised, the battered and the desolate in disguise.He testifies with sweat soaked shout outs from streets of heartache and back alley banquets, all the while tangling with angels of mercy, lost souls in hell and black iron gates with a tombstone glow.

Pittsburgh’s favourite rock and roots ringer Bill Toms ― heart permanently affixed to sleeve ― has for nearly three decades spun many a dour and disconsolate tale of Steel City solitary sin, sadness and the search for salvation, with gut-level grandeur.

Yet, for all the darkness and doubt, when the soft-spoken troubadour talks of his hometown, he does so with an unshakeable sense of affection ― his reverence, much like his melodies, a no-nonsense mix of passion, personal pride, pragmatism and, above all, hope.

“It’s a great town to live in, especially if you’re a writer,” gushes Toms matter of factly."There’s just so much to write about. So much history and folklore. And recent history as well. If you think about the steel industry: my grandfather worked in the mills all his adult life. My father was a construction worker. It was and remains a really hard working town. And so much ethnic diversity as well. It’s the kind of city that just gets into your blood.”

Rock and roll gets into the blood as well. Stoked by the sounds of his youth, primarily the “Motown and soul music at home and the regional R&B scenes,” Toms, his guitar firmly in hand, first struck a ragged chord of his own round town with rockers The Shades in the early 1980s. The group’s future, however, was anything but bright; shortly thereafter, the band literally lost its rhythm, as drummer Joffo Simmons took leave to join local frontrunner Joe Grushecky (formerly of The Iron City Houserockers) and the Houserockers.

The Shades soldiered on (“I wasn’t real happy with what I was doing, admits Toms) for a time, until Grushecky, facing a membership exodus of his own, extended in ’86 an invitation to Toms to join the Houserocker fray, thus christening what was soon to be regarded as the best bar band in America.

“I just got a call one night,” recalls Toms of his recruitment into the Houserockers, a creative alliance that spanned seven recordings ― including the Bruce Springsteeen-produced American Babylon ― and the better part of “about 20 years.”

“Everyone knew everyone else back then,” Toms recalls. “Joe and I had talked a bunch of times about putting together a side project, a blues band. It just worked out this way.”

The ever diligent Toms, meanwhile, continued to write his own songs, slowly but surely working on what was to become 1997's, Paradise Avenue, his first solo effort and the start of a stellar seven-records and counting run with his own band, the appropriately named Hard Rain.

"I learned a lot about discipline," says Toms of his formative years on the road as a Houserocker."Joe, and the other guys, they were all a little older than us ― by about 10 years. So they taught me a lot. I go into every gig thinking if this is my last gig. For one person or 10,000 people, it’s all the same: to always give it everything.”

It's a lesson learned well, for when Toms hits the stage, his particular brand of tough and tender back-to-the-wall rock and roll, equal parts blues, folk, country, gospel and soul, serves to facilitate what feels like a mutually intimate stageside confessional ― frustrations are aired, burdens released, and redemption granted by way of a sidewalk solidarity, sandpaper growl and the sting of a six-string note.

"That's the magic of the artform, "explains Toms, whose next record, produced by Will Kimbrough and due out in September, finds the tunesmith embracing a "more southern mentality ― a sort of Muscle Shoals, Memphis, Stax Records ideology.

"I think that's true of any creative outlet, where all the emotions are coming out. That's where the passion comes in. And I try to capture that, as best I can."