The Soul of John Black - Good Thang

 
Big generalization.

I don't like R&B, but I love Soul.

The difference? Well . . . it's soul.  Soul has it.  R&B doesn't.  In my small, over-generalizing mind, soul is the music of musicians, reaching down deep into their inner beings to tell a story.  R&B is the province of producers sitting in the booth playing with vocal effects to make a buck.  You can keep your Usher's, I'll take Maxwell.  Not interested in Chris Brown, I'm into Bill Withers.  Don't want Beyonce.  I'll take Me'shell Ndgeocello.

Actually, right now, the only thing I want is The Soul of John Black.

The Soul of Black John is the work of one immensely talented John Bingham (JB), a long time veteran of the music scene. This guy's resume is his calling card in soul credibility, having worked with and written songs for Miles Davis, played guitar and keyboards with Fishbone for eight years, and toured and recorded with the likes of Eminem, Joi, Bruce Hornsby and Ripple favorite, Everlast. And let me tell you that experience shows on this magnificent outing.

It was back in 2009 that I first heard the enormously groovy vibes of The Soul of John Black and his album Black John.  Back then, I had no hesitation in labeling him a "soul savior" and hailing his album as "the soul album of the year." And wouldn't you know it, the cat has gone out and outdone himself on his newest album Good Thang.  If you're taste veer towards the grand ol' days of Stax, or the truly tasty sounds of pure '70's soul, Bill Withers and Al Green with a touch of the bluesy vibe of Robert Cray, this is the album for you.

I remember a while back, I did an interview with John, trying to dig down into his influences and methods.   When the interview was done I got an email from his publicity firm, apologizing --saying sorry over and over for his curt answers like:  

Me: "Genre's are so misleading and such a way to pigeonhole bands. Without resorting to labels, how would you describe your music?"

John: "My Music."


Personally, I couldn't understand what they were apologizing for.  I loved it!  I loved the authenticity of his answers.  I loved the fact that he had no time or patience for my meandering missives and instead preferred to let his music do the talking.  And that's exactly what he does on Good Thang.  This isn't an album of fancy production or over-the-top choruses.  This isn't an album designed to become the latest craze on YouTube or whatever.  It's an album of amazingly pure warmth, deeply organic, and teeming with authenticity of soul. 



Good Thang is every deep-rooted soul album you loved in the seventies, given a glorious shine and freshened up for 2011.  That's not to say the album is "retro."  It's not.  True soul is timeless, and that's what The Soul of John Black has fashioned here.  An album of timeless grooves and ageless emotions. Since his last album, John went out and got engaged and had a baby, and the transformation that's had on his life is rapturous.  Ignoring just-for-fun songs like "Digital Blues," and what comes across is the overwhelming theme of the album: how John found contentment in this sometimes cruel, not always fair world.  He's loving his family, loving his life, and that joyous flood rains over me like water to a man dying in the desert.  This is an album of joy and love, and really when was the last time you found one of those that didn't reek of being contrived?

Not here, John's passion and "life is good" emotion fills every groove of this album.  Forget anything else you've heard, this is the feel-good album of the summer in the truest sense of the word and it's just begging to bring the groove to your backyard BBQ or warm summer night of lovin'.

Song's like "Good Thang," and "Strawberry" elevate with the thrill of a man fulfilled with the woman in his life and the family he's creating.  Honesty here.  True honesty.  Whether played over a deep, retro-Al Green groove or played with a loose strung, backyard blues vibe. It's real, and that's all that matters.  Other songs, like "Digital Blues," or the massively funky "Oh That Feeling" keep the energy flowing and the butts ready to shake.  Throughout, the guitar work is perfect.

But I'm not going to go into each song here, and I'm not going to describe the guitarwork.  Really, if you dig old soul and blues, you owe it to yourself to explore these veins.  But no review of this album could be complete without a special nod towards "Lil' Mama's in the Kitchen."  This is the story of John waking up one day and staggering out of bed heading towards the kitchen.  He can smell the coffee brewing as he peers around the corner and see's his lady making breakfast.  There, he pauses.  Not to interrupt her, but just watches.   In that moment, everything crystallizes for him, everything about his life, his woman, his new baby.   His newfound joy for life.

It's such a moment of honesty that it nearly took my breath away.  His words are so clear I can almost smell the coffee and the bacon, see the baby perched up in the high chair in the corner.  He's watching her "in her family way" moving about, drifting from the stove to the refrigerator and suddenly it's so clear what he's working for.  What each song he writes is for.  What all the struggle is about.  There's nothing contrived here.  It's a man in love, determined to make the best of himself he can for his family.  He's watching his woman doing the most routine thing in the world and he's falling in love all over again.  He's "feeling good today" and damn . . . so am I.  Just hearing this song shot me immediately to all the times I just watched Mrs Racer sleeping with that little smile on her face, or dancing, or laughing at some horrible joke on television.  That's what love is all about. Not the grand gestures, but the littlest moments.

Ok, enough proselytizing.   But really, when is the last time you heard a song that made you feel something that powerful in your own life. 

And that's why I loved my "silent" interview with The Soul of John Black.  He really didn't have to answer my questions, and I really didn't have to ask them.  We just needed to let the music do the talking.

--Racer

Buy here: Good Thang

Kaye Bohler - Like A Flower

 

One of the constants in my life since I first moved to Northern California over thirty years ago has been the local music scene.  Ever since the blues moved west in the 1940’s the area between Monterey and Eureka,- the Bay, Coast, Redwoods, Peninsula and Delta - have been  magnets for musicians and artists.  Well above the average per capita number of musicians and artists live here than live in most other major metropolitan areas. Northern California has its own cadence and its own style.

The Bay Area was overrun with great players well before the blues-based “San Francisco Sound” - that counterculture rock music performed live and recorded by San Francisco-based rock groups of the mid-1960s to early-1970s.  After World War II  the “West Coast Blues” style exploded all over the Bay Area.  It was typified by T-Bone Walker and Charlie Christian with their jazzy swing versions of Chicago jump blues.  The West Coast Blues became the progenitor of the “San Francisco Sound.”

The result of all of this talent in one place inevitably leads to recording sessions by neighbors and friends.  Such is the case with Kaye Bohler’s release Like A Flower. Kaye is a Bay Area singer/songwriter who fronts her own blues band, The Kaye Bohler Band.  On Like A Flower she enlists the help of two Northern California blues guitar legends, the amazing Robben Ford and the incomparable Tommy Castro.  When put all together by Berkeley-based Red Rooster Studio Producer Tony Lufrano you get a great album of Kaye Bohler written blues tunes that provides a wonderful snapshot of the West Coast Blues community in the early 21st Century.

Bohler has a deep blues voice with decent, but limited, range.  Yet, that is not necessarily a bad thing.  Billie Holiday’s voice lacked range, was thin, and due to years of excessive drug use, quivered.  There is more to singing than range, such as delivery, and Bohler makes the most of what she has.

It is the rotating band line-ups that standout on this release. Predictably, the tracks with Tommy Castro and Robben Ford are incredibly tight, However, the band on every track cooks despite ever-changing band personnel.  It seems as if every track is backed by a different group of players. It makes for a “Who’s Who” of today’s Northern California blues player community. Kaye is joined by her husband drummer John Paul and lead guitarist Sammy Varela, both from Kaye’s Bay Area Band; bassist Steve Evans from the East Bay’s Chris Cain Band;  Berkeley-based session guitarist and instructor Garth Webber; percussionist Cubby Ingram from the San Francisco group What a Band!;  San Francisco vocalists Kathy Kennedy and Keta Bill; Bay Area guitarist Danny Caron; Oakland trumpteer Tom Fuglestadt; Walnut Creek saxophonist Armon Boyd; tombonist Joel Behrman from the San Francisco group Brass Mafia; Bay Area drummer Jimmy Sanchez formerly from the Delta Rhythm Kings and now with the Flying Other Brothers; San Francisco trumpeteer Tom Poole; and the list goes on and on. 

That, in itself, makes Like A Flower an important album in the history of the “West Coast Blues.”  I know of no other album that brings together the backbone of the Northern California blues-based music community in one release. Future music lovers will be able to listen to this 2009 album and hear and feel the West Coast Bay Area blues music scene of the first decade of the second millennia.

They should like what they hear.

- Old School

Buy here: Like a Flower
Buy here mp3: Like a Flower

Junior Wells & The Aces – Live In Boston 1966

Do you want the real thing? Well, here it is. The incredible Junior Wells is one of the very best harmonica players of all time and this previously unreleased live show captures him inebriated and rocking hard. Junior’s partnership with Buddy Guy contains some of his best work, but here he is playing a Boston nightclub in 1966 with an excellent bunch of musicians from Chicago. The great Fred Below is on drums joined by guitarist Louis Myers and his brother Dave on bass.

Goddamn, these muthers boogie like no other!  There are some great slow songs like “Worried Life Blues” and “That’s All Right” but where they excel is on the uptempo jams. They come out swinging with a killer version of “Feelin’ Good.” The band sets up an instant party groove and Junior is in great voice and you can tell that he really does feel good. When he says that they’re gonna boogie til the break of day, you know he means it. “Man Downstairs” has some great harmonica playing and keeps the boogie flowing nicely. The band really stretches out on “Junior’s Whoop,” a killer 8 minute workout that really rocks the house. There’s a high energy of the hit “Messin’ With The Kid” that gets everyone worked up.

A couple of blues standards like “Hideaway” and “Got My Mojo Workin” get the Junior Wells treatment and Louis Myers throws in a few nice jazzy guitar licks to keep things interesting. The crowd loves this band. In between songs you get to hear Junior talking to the rowdy audience and joking with the other musicians onstage.

Play this disc loud on your stereo and you really get the feeling that you are there. Bands just don’t cook like this anymore. The playing is lean and mean, tight but loose. Chances are these guys didn’t practice much together but they all knew the material so when they hit the stage they could jam together without things ever getting stale. The only excuse you have for not patting your feet to this great record is you don’t have any.

--Woody

Buy here: Live In Boston 1966

Buy from Delmark (and listen here)

http://www.delmark.com/delmark.newblues.htm

Lynwood Slim and the Igor Prado Band - Brazilian Kicks

It is just the Blues. It is often said among musicians that playing the “Blues” is “emotive” and requires less technical skill than playing “Jazz.”  That is a gross over generalization.  I don’t know of a guitarist who would argue that it takes more skill to play, say, “Baby, Please Don’t Go” by Big Joe Williams than it takes to play “Nuages” by Django Reinhardt.  It doesn’t.  However, there is, in fact, a whole sub-genre of “Blues,” as exacting as “Jazz,” that requires the skills of the technical “Jazz” musician in a “Blues” player -  the “Jump or Swing Blues.” 

Jump or Swing Blues is a delicious synthesis of emotion and technical prowess.  It mixes conventions. Blues harp players play alongside Jazz horn players. Blues guitar styles mix with jazz guitar styles. Pioneered by the likes of big band leaders Cab Calloway and Louis Prima, it is now practiced by modern day troubadours such as Brian Setzer, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and Cherry Poppin’ Daddies. Yet, I have never heard better jump jazz and blues than Lynwood Slim and The Igor Prado Band on their new Delta Groove release Brazilian Kicks.

Igor Prado is a self-taught left-handed guitar player who merely flips a right-handed guitar over to play.  He doesn’t restring it. The high E is on top (Coco Montoya does the same thing and I have never been able to understand how he does it.)  For years Prado has been in Brazil playing jump blues and western swing.  He has three Prado Blues Band releases under his belt and and a well-received 2007 solo Blues album blues entitled “UpsideDown.” The Igor Prado Band adds Yuri Prado on drums, bassist Rodrigo Mantovani and saxophonist Denilson Martin and, on Brazilian Kicks, special guest pianist Donny Nichilo. 

Lynwood Slim has been blowin’ the harp since he was fifteen years old and has his own recording history with six past releases  - starting with “Soul Feet” in 1996 and, most recently, in 2006 with “Last Call.” In addition to his formidable harmonica chops this dude has one of the greatest smooth easy jazz/blues voices out there. His band, on his last album included guitarists Kid Ramos and Kirk Fletcher, transplanted boogie-woogie piano master Carl Sonny Leyland and mandolin master Rich Del Grosso,

Combining the talents of these artists was pure genius. Prado’s guitar playing is special.  The clear, crisp and clean jazz guitar tone and Django Reinhardt-like artistry are dirtied just enough by the harp, horn, bottom and the blues tone of other guitarists . When you add Slim’s silky vocals you are taken to a place somewhere between the 1940’s and tomorrow.

“Shake It Baby” is James Brown-infused, Tom Jones singing “You Can Leave Your Hat On,” type performance with a short, but stellar, guitar solo and, of all things, a brazilian flute,“Is It True?” is a 1950’s jump blues with an amazing mixture of guitar styles - a down and dirty modern blues guitar with a jazz guitar back beat that gives way to a piano lead punctuated by horns.

“Bloodshot Eyes” is a track of wonder.  I was raised on black and white “I Love Lucy” TV reruns and the tune is a return to childhood.  The song sounds like it comes right out of the Ricky Ricardo songbook. The saxophone and guitar on those old shows were never this good.  Igor Prado’s Band’s Brazilian influence is perfectly suited for the song. A jump blues vamp  “My Hat’s On The Side Of My Head” follows with such smoothness that it will have you simultaneously reaching for your tap shoes and fedora.   Then, “Blue Bop” will have you boppin’ fast and hard. The orchestration, arrangement, guitar lead, and horn solo are as good as it gets. I put this track up there with Joe Pass’, Herb Ellis’, Jake Hanna’, Plas Johnson’s and Harry “Sweets” Edison’s rendition of Oscar Peterson’s “Seven Come Eleven”on their 1973 release as one of the greatest, fast, jump jazz blues that I have ever heard.

By now the pace of the album is frantic so Slim slows it down with a slow Chicago-style Blues song, “Little Girl.”  However, the pace does not slow for long. Next, the band cranks it up with another bopper, “I Sat And Cried."  It has a wonderful background piano and accenting horns, but is mainly Lynwood Slim’s voice and upbeat drums.

Then, like in an old movie - the brass section slowly comes in and a slow handed precise jazz guitar plays a song suited for Frank Sinatra, “Maybe Someday.” You can envision the audience swooning to Slim’s sultry voice and the big band, Duke Ellington-esque blues arrangement. Yet, just as you are lulled into that soft, silky 1940’s sound Lynwood Slim busts out his harp and gets dirty with “Show Me The Way.”  On this one there is an edge to Slim’s voice and to his harp as he performs this gritty Chicago “lost my baby” blues song.  Transportation is provided back to the big band swing era with “Bill’s Change,” a instrumental that showcases Prado’s guitar and Martin’s saxophone.

On comes “The Comeback,” which adds piano and Slim’s blues to big band music. It creates a heavenly marriage of blues and jazz styles that uses multi-layers of sound and rhythm. When “The Way You Do” makes you realize that “Black Magic Woman” was really just an awesome jazz tune. The track is just as good as Santana’s but has a cleaner guitar sound - as if Bob Bogle of the Ventures was playing lead instead of Carlos. The disk concludes with Slim on the instrumental “Going To Mona Lisa’s” - a straight ahead harmonica blues jam. 

These tracks are beautiful, emotive, inspiring and technical.  This stuff takes significant musical skill and, yes, - it is just the Blues.

- Old School

Buy here mp3: Brazilian Kicks
Buy here: Brazilian Kicks

Swississippi Chris Harper - Four Aces And A Harp

Lately I have received a plethora of blues harp albums.  By the volume received you would think that everyone in America plays a pocket blues orchestra. A few artists are distinctive - a cut above the rest.  But, generally, blues harmonica players play covers. Most blow a decent Willie Dixon, Lightinin’ Hopkins or Muddy Waters tune or two.  The problem comes from a desire to compare.

I have heard the original recordings. The originals are old, scratchy and monophonic - victims of the state of technology at the time they were recorded.  Yet, they are full of heart, soul and passion.  Through the tin cup, hollow bass, sound of the original recordings there is the visage of true emotion and amazing instrumental improvisation.  Unfortunately, many modern blues artists take such improvisation as gospel and play exactly as the blues master recorded it.  So, how do you compare the original rendition to that of the cover? You look for the artists to make the songs their own.  You listen for feeling. You hope for the unexpected.  Does it move you or is it a mundane faithful reproduction?

One of the discs I recently received is a new release Four Aces And A Harp from Swississippi Records with namesake “Swississippi” Chris Harper (what better name for a harmonica player than “Harper?”) blowing eighteen tracks of blues - fifteen of which are covers of songs by blues greats, two that are originals and one that is a converted jazz classic.  Harper pulled together a few legends - Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and John Primer (Muddy Waters’ bandmates) and Bob Stroger (Otis Rush’s bassist), and grabbed some of the best young traditional blues talent around, to record the CD.  According to the liner notes his aim was to produce a traditional Chicago Blues album.  However, what resulted was a blues lovefest as the musicians sat in a circle and played and recorded.  Many of the tracks are supposedly first takes.  As a consequence they contain that instrumental improvisation and freshness lacking in so many other modern traditional blues albums.

Harper is no slouch on the mouth organ.  He started sucking wind when he was 12 years old and, over the years, has learned from some of the best.  He has a tone, tempo and technique suited to the traditional Chicago Blues genre.  With vocal help from modern day blues players as varied as Jimmy Burns of the Jimmy Burns Band, Tail Dragger and Kenny “Beady Eyes” Smith (Willie “Big Eyes” Smith’s son), and from legends Smith and Primer, Harper invigorates the old material and also provides soulful renditions of his own songs.

It is a special treat to listen to Harper’s mournful harp wail on the song “I Smell Trouble” as it perfectly accompanies a heart-rendering vocal performance by Jimmy Burns. Heavy blues guitar is embellished by Harper’s warble on Muddy Water’s classic “Long Distance Call.”  Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Eyesight To The Blind” is given a blues swing treatment in which each performer gets to shine.  Sleepy John Estes’ “Worried Life Blues,” which has probably been performed by every blues player from B.B. King to Eric Clapton to Kenny Wayne Shepherd, is given a down and dirty slow drudge cadence that actually sounds like the band is worried.  The sole “non-blues” song on the album, an instrumental version of Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” crosses out of the big band jazz genre and grabs the feeling that the blues get when greats such as Pinetop Perkins tickle the ivories.

There is much, much, more on this album and it is all worth a long listen.     While the album does not break new ground, it is a strong effort that contains stellar recordings of many well-known Chicago Blues numbers by some of the original blues masters and their attentive modern day students and progeny.  The trading of harp leads by Harper and Willie “Big Eyes” Smith on Smith’s “Born In Arkansas,” by itself is worth the price of admission.

This is not a mundane faithful reproduction.  It is unexpected and full of feeling.  Keep blowin’ Swississippi.  Keep blowin’.

- Old School

Buy here: Four Aces & A Harp

Mitch Kashmar & the Pontiax - 100 Miles To Go

In high school there was this dream.  I was learning to play guitar and, on a hot summer day in Southern California - too hot to be out in the sun inland - too crowded at the beach to find a legal parking space - I’d frequently retreat to my friend Bill’s parent’s cool basement. Bill played drums which he stored in this large concrete-walled finished foundation room that was half dug into a hillside overlooking San Pedro - Long Beach harbor.  Bill’s friend, Dudley, would drop by with his bass,  Occasionally Dudley’s brother, David, and sometimes a mutual friend, Robbie, would show up with their guitars.  Once in a while we would invite a keyboard player, horn player, harmonica player, another guitarist or a vocalist to join us.  This happened frequently enough that we got good - real good.  We had a repertoire of songs and jams that we repeated, traded, and vamped.  Soon we were playing dances and events. Sometimes we even got paid. We recorded material and made a few reel to reel tapes - the preferred format of the day - that could later be mixed down, and made friends with radio dj’s and club owners.  Many of our recordings have yet to make the light of day and I have no idea if they still exist.

High school ended and our music scene changed. We realized we could not then support ourselves playing music.  We started families, left for far away colleges, joined the military or took jobs away from LA.  It became a rare treat to all be in the same place at the same time and even rarer to be able to play together.  But, every time we did, the dream began again - just like in high school.  There is still a glimmer of it now when we see each other.

In the early 1980’s, while I was moving north to San Francisco for law school, Mitch Kashmar & the Pontiax were moving south from playing locally the Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura County areas making the next step to, Los Angeles, the big city.  Performance tour progressions have not changed appreciably since then.  Bands that wanted to expand from a local phenomena to have a West Coast  presence oscillate between the Bay Area, Los Angeles and, sometimes, San Diego, Portland or Seattle.  This was especially true of blues bands since the Central Valley and inland areas were not as kind to blues bands as they were to country western bands.  Mitch Kashmar & the Pontiax’s shot at stardom taken while they were in their twenties and that  went one or two steps beyond the West Coast .  They played Chicago, the Mid-West circuit and Europe, a hot bed for American blues.  The band went through three different line-ups but, it is the one that is on this album that had the dream, and a little cash to try to make it a reality.

Kashmar is a master harmonica player. In 1999, he began his own solo career and toured with his own band winning the 2006 Best New Artist and 2007 Best Instrumentalist - Harmonica, Blues Music Awards.  Here are just some quotes about him from bandVillage:

He's shared the stage with some of the biggest names in blues over the years, including Big Joe Turner, Eddie 'Cleanhead' Vinson, Lowell Fulson, Jimmy Witherspoon, John Lee Hooker, Pee Wee Crayton, and Johnny Adams, among others. Kim Wilson – no slouch on harp or vocals himself – offered this assessment: “Oh man, is he tough!” Charlie Musselwhite: "Your playing and singing are superb.” John Hammond: "...unbelievable; a great singer and up there with the best harp players I've ever heard.” And the late William Clarke had this to say: "Out of all the younger generation of blues harp players, Mitch Kashmar is my favorite. He's also a first-class vocalist -- his singing really knocks me out." And Stevie Ray Vaughan paid what must be the ultimate compliment from one musician to another: “Can I sit in?”

Even with these great compliments monetary success and the large stage have eluded Kashmar. So it is with this album, 100 Miles To Go,  a reissue of the long out of print classic 80’s recording by The Pontiax that featured him, with which Kashmar tries to recapture the dream.

It works. My God, it works.  Everything is written by Kashmar and the stuff is blues TNT. The first ten tracks are reissues of old material.  They contain that “20 year old’s” exuberance of being on your own, doing what you love, with anticipation of the future that is combined with the mayhem and excitement of a traveling, working, band.  Pick any of the first ten tracks.  The band is tight, the blues exciting and Kashmar blows his mind out on the harp.   There is even a sort of tribute to old friends who are no longer with The Pontiax.  On track 6, “Horn of Plenty,” the late, great harmonica player William Clarke can be heard playing the first harp.

The last two tracks of the album are where a glimmer of Kashmar’s Pontiax dream of his 20’s shows up as Kashmar enters his 50’s.  These two tracks  are “bonus tracks.” Kashmar was able to assemble almost all of the old touring Pontiax band heard on the first ten tracks - Bill Flores on guitar and tenor sax,  Jack Kennedy on bass, Tom Lackner on drums and Pontiax 1980’s friend, Jim Calire on keyboards and tenor sax.  Track 11, “When You Do Me Like That (“I Wanna Do You Like This),” is a raunchy, syncopated, party of a blues that shows how much the band has matured and how close these guys play together.  The final track, “The Petroleum Blues,” is timely and catchy as a blues gets. It could become an rallying anthem in the wake of today’s oil wars and spills.

Mitch, congratulations sir, keep that dream alive and I hope to hear more from you and The Pontiax.  Blues bands at 50 are infants - just ask Pinetop Perkins and Honeyboy Edwards. 

- Old School


Buy here: 100 Miles To Go

  

Bob Corritore And Friends - Harmonica Blues

Although the modern mouth organ was invented in the early 1820's in Vienna, Austria, it wasn't until 1857 when Matthias Hohner shipped one of his creations to relatives in the United States that the blues harp began to evolve.  It is said that it was so portable and such a hit that even Abraham Lincoln carried one in his pocket.  It became the Civil War soldier's portable orchestra and was known to be played out west by lawman Wyatt Earp and outlaw Billy the Kid.    

Harmonicas were first recorded in the 1920's on "race records" - music intended for African Americans.  These recordings memorialized great blues harp players such as Walter Horton and Sonny Terry.  The second great wave of American blues pocket piano players came in the 1950's with such notables as Sonny Boy Williamson, II, Little Walter, Big Walter Horton and Howlin' Wolf.  This was the era when the mouth harp met the microphone which allowed the instrument to be heard above the electric guitar and drums.  The sound became integral to the bump and grind music of the day.  It is this era, the 1950's-early 60's, that Bob Corritore and Friends recapture on Harmonica Blues.

The disk is a 15 track compendium of recordings from 1989 through 2009 of Corritore with some of the greatest blues musicians of the 1950's and early 1960's. Only one song, "1815 West Roosevelt,"  was written by Corritore.  It is an instrumental named after the address for a long gone blues joint called "Club Alex" on the West Side of Chicago that use to feature Muddy Waters.  The remainder of the album is comprised of blues music written and performed by the creme de la creme of early Delta and Chicago blues artists.

For 20 years Corritore has been the host of Arizona radio station KJZZ's weekly radio show "Those Lowdown Blues" a show that brings the music of, and interviews with, bluesmasters to the desert airwaves. Corritore also books all of the entertainment for his nightclub the Rhythm Room (Phoenix's top spot for national touring blues talent.) As you hear on this record he is also a world class blues harmonica player. As a result Corritore was able to assemble a veritable Who's Who list of artists to play with him on "Harmonica Blues."

The album features the late Koko Taylor singing her song "What Kind Of Man Is This?" with Muddy Waters' guitarist Bob Margolin and drummer Willie "Big Eyes" Smith.  Legendary Louisiana Red sings his wife's song "Tell Me 'Bout It." Dave Riley, probably best known as the engineer for the Parliament-Funkadelic bands, warbles delta blues harmonica immortal Frank Frost's "Things You Do." The late Nappy Brown wails on the late Texas country blues legend Andrew "Smokey" Hogg's "Baby Don't You Tear My Clothes."  Robert Lockwood, Jr. performs the immortal Jimmy Rogers' "That's All Right." Big Pete Pearson, known as Arizona's King of the Blues, tackles the late Bob Geddins' "Tin Pan Alley."  Tomcat Courtney, a San Diego blues guitarist who didn't release his first album until he was 78 years old, belts out his blues  "Sundown San Diego."   Eddie "The Chief" Clearwater, a Chicago blues legend and contemporary of Magic Sam, Otis Rush and Freddie King, shreds on vocals and guitar on his blues anthem "That's My Baby." Howlin' Wolf's main piano player until 1968, Henry Gray, sings his song "Things Have Changed" with the late great Chico Chism, Howlin' Wolf's last drummer, on drums.  Chism also joins the inimitable and seemingly ageless Pinetop Perkins on Perkins' tune "Big Fat Mama." Chief Schabuttie Gilliame, a local Phoenix blues legend, performs his blues "No More Doggin'." Dave "Honeyboy" Edwards who, along with Pinetop Perkins are the oldest Delta blues players still touring the US, sings the blues of legendary Memphis Minnie McCoy's called "Bumble Bee."  Lafayette, Louisiana's Carol Fran plays her song "I Need To Be Be'd With" while the late Chism again sets the pace on drums. The album ends with the late Little Milton singing his "6 Bits In Your Dollar" accompanied by Henry Gray and Chism.  Throughout it all Corritore blows a mean harp as an accompaniment to the work of these blues legends.

This is a special album.  It contains what may be some of the very last recordings made by some of the greatest blues artists and sidemen of the 20th Century.  To be able to bring them all together in one album on which they play with such joy, abandon and soul is a thing of beauty.  The album itself is a graduate level class in the harmonica blues given by a master instructor surrounded by the originals who pioneered the genre. 

If you love Delta and Chicago harmonica blues this recording is a must have for your collection.

 - Old School

The Coppertone - Hidden Dreams

There are two different ways to view the blues, one is to see it as a limited musical form with only so many variations, so that when a genuinely exciting bluesman comes along, say, a Stevie Ray Vaughn or Joe Bonamassa, we end up complimenting them by degrees or on their technical veracity. The other way is to come to the blues from the emotional end, and view the 12 bar turnarounds as emotional bookends to the sorrow or lust or longing or passion of the singer. The Black Keys have been straddling this line for albums, and the reality is that very few bluesmen or women are willing to belly up to the bar and take the John Lee Hooker approach: sparse drums, unusual counts, playing behind the beat and, god help the singer, let the vocals and the guitar stand naked in space.

The Coppertone’s album Hidden Dreams takes a cue not only from John Lee Hooker but Portishead as well. Amanda Zelina’s voice, alone, has the emotional strength to stand alone in the opening tracks "Heroine" and "Nighttime Wishes," but can get placed into the maelstrom of of sound that is the fourth track, "Satisfied Mind." The drums aren’t quite John Bonham’s "When the levee Breaks", but the crunch of the guitars is utterly unexpected from the sparse blues sound of the first three tracks. Instead of pretending that the last 80 years of music hadn’t happened, Amanda elegantly, forcefully makes the case that with the blues as her base she’s going to use anything she damn well pleases for her songs.

"Heroine" opens the album, Nick Skalkos’ ambient drums shaking in the big empty room, before Amanda’s echoing voice cries out, her long vocal lines contrasting with the rhythmic guitar bouncing along, syncopated to the drums. Lacking other members to fill out the sound, we can practically hear the walls echoing their sound. And that’s the whole point. John Lee Hooker and Son House made records in shoeboxes that did nothing to take a hint of the edge off of their harrowing tales of deep south blues. In face, that ambient sound can help to define much of the sound and very few bands use it much if at all these days. Those early blues albums make you hear the room, not just the musician.

"Nighttime Wishes" is one minute and 24 seconds of blue dirge run through the White Stripes mini amp. Amanda shares Jack White’s love of miking a semi-hollow body guitar so that you can hear the damn guitar, every single atonal note, and not just the amp. And then we get emotional whip lash by walking into the hoedown of "One of a Kind." It’s the eternal story of romance and boy meets girl. Yes, I want you/and I know you want me too/I gonna getcha/ gonna make you mine/there’s two of us in this old world/but together we’re one of a kind.

In part, Zelina’s skill at the blues lies in her influences. Hooker and Son House taught her what not to play, self evident in the restraint that she shows on the song. There is nary a note wasted and quite a few that you expect that stay in her back pocket waiting for  another son

With slow rise of feedback, "7 of Spades" is practically metal filtered through the old school mike distortion once favored by Mark Sandman of Morphine. Nick’s entire drum kit is shaking providing the backbeat to Amanda’s heavy guitar riff. She teases the riff with bits of slide mixed in, something unlikely to show up in your average metal album. So much emptiness/but nothing to give/sold your soul to the devil/but you still can’t save. All the anger in the world cracks open and pours out of the wronged woman.

Hidden Dreams, a title track pushed down to the sixth track, lives and dies from the heavy backbeat, slow and steady, like a heartbeat that Amanda can sing a song of lonliness and despair over. The rhythmic touches can’t hide the heaviness of the bass here, as if Zelina has been listening to the deep depair of Robert Johnson’s thumb hitting those bass strings as the sound that grounds everything else in the world to that one thumping beat.

"Mile type of Love" takes us closer to Nashville, edging into the storytelling that has launched a thousand bumper stickers over the years. The earnestness of the love affair that might have driven Patsy Cline to tears, Amanda sings the closer to the night’s set as the love that she set free didn’t come back. So what did she do? Driven 700 miles/and picked up all the pieces/we left a long time ago. Pour another cheap beer for the drummer.

But its up to the second to last track, "Run," to fuse some of the best efforts into one beautiful dirge, the urgent tension of John Lee Hooker’s rhythms mixed with the porcelin Portishead vocals, and you have 2 minutes and 53 seconds of liquid emotion that leaves you gasping for more when it fades out. The fact that the final song, "Ramblin’," is a slide guitar drenched cover of Robert Johnson’s "Ramblin’ on my mind", should lay Zelina’s intentions laid bare. And the beauty of it is, given the high stakes gambling that she’s taking on with her influences, The Coppertones do an excellent job of ceding not a bit of ground

Its not a long record, but delicious from beginning to end, each track worth a listen. Damn but there are a lot of good bands up in Canada these days!

With a slide guitar and a bottle of bourbon – the fearless rock iguana

Elvin Bishop - Red Dog Speaks

Famous guitarists frequently name their favorite guitars. Eric Clapton had "Blackie," his black Fender Stratocaster.  B.B. King had his "Lucille's" to remind him to never again run into a burning building. Dick Dale had "The Beast," a gold Fender Strat specially designed to take the abuse he applied to the guitar. Billy Gibbons created "Muddywood," from a porch board taken from Muddy Waters' birthplace. Elvin Bishop has "Red Dog," a cherry red 1959 Gibson stereo ES-345.  It is Red Dog that is the subject of his new album Red Dog Speaks.

Bishop's songwriting is, for many, an acquired taste.  His songs are mostly talking country blues in the style of country blues pioneer Jerry Reed.  The lyrics are usually corny.  Combined with Bishop's stunning resemblance to Harpo Marx you get the feeling Bishop will "go for the joke" and let you in on it when he can. The first track, "Red Dog Speaks," is a talking, walking blues about Bishop's ES-345. On "Fat & Sassy" Bishop recalls a great Thanksgiving Dinner and bemoans what his doctors now allow him to eat.  "Blues Cruise," is another talkin' blues, likely written for an actual Blues Cruise, that calls on Bishop's friends Ronnie Baker Brooks, Tommy Castro, Buckwheat Zydeco, John Nemeth and Roy Gaines to join in and play. "Clean Livin'" is a solo talkin' blues retrospective in which Bishop reflects on what has happened in his lifetime and about having grown old with an eye for the ladies.

There are also a few odd song choices on the album. Bishop performs an instrumental "Doo-Wop Medley" that covers the old standards "In The Still Of The Night" and "Maybe." He also does a cover of the traditional melody "His Eye Is On The Sparrow." In both cases the songs are rather old and dated but saved by Bishop's amazing guitar virtuosity. He also offers his own instrumental, "Barbeque Boogie," a guitar, piano, bass and drums blues jam that I suspect was actually recorded at an Elvin Bishop hosted backyard barbeque.

The best vocal tracks on the album are covers. Bishop does an amazing job on Crazy Cajun Huey P. Meaux's "Neighbor Neighbor;" he wails on Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers To Cross;"  belts out Otis Spann's "Get Your Hand Out Of My Pocket;" and slow burns his rendition of blues legend Leroy Carr's "Midnight Hour Blues."

On an album named after what Bishop's guitar can do the vocals hardly matter.  This effort is all about Red Dog.  Bishop can blow the listener away with his guitar playing and this album proves it.  It doesn't matter if you like or don't like Bishop's lyrics or his jokes.  It doesn't make one bit of difference whether the lyrics are talkin' blues or the music is improvised. The lyrics are of secondary importance. This is the blues. Just listen to Bishop make Red Dog howl, cry, scream and talk.

Elvin Bishop is a legend not because of "Fooled Around And Fell In Love" and "Travelin' Shoes" (although those hits probably put a large chunk of change in his pocket.)  He is a legend because, ever since 1963 when he first played with Paul Butterfield, he has been one of the finest guitarists - especially slide guitarists - alive.  Bishop makes Red Dog speak. Good boy Red Dog.

- Old School

Buy here:  Red Dog Speaks