Book Review: Richard Langston’s The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul (2026)

In the antediluvian age of the 1970s, long before the Internet became radicalized and the Worldwide Web was merely a hastily scribbled note on some young British computer scientist’s “To Do” list, teenaged rockers across the “fruited plain” were somewhat limited in our knowledge of the music we loved. You couldn’t look up a band “online” and while publications like Creem, Circus, Rolling Stone, and Crawdaddy provided a glimpse behind the veil into the mysteries of rock ‘n’ roll, for those of us who were stuck stateside (or didn’t have access to the New Musical Express), it could take us months…or even years to hear about our “favorite” new band. Word of mouth was the currency of the decade, and we developed friendships with like-minded punters who got their groove on to the Stones, Bowie, Zeppelin, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Mott the Hoople, and Alice Cooper. 

Records were lent, swapped, and sometimes stolen and we each gradually built up a personal playlist (and absorbed knowledge) of the music we liked. When punk hit the U.K. it took a couple of years to bubble up across most of the U.S. but when records by the Clash, Sex Pistols, the Buzzcocks, and others eventually became available, we repeated the cycle of knowledge of our early teens. The 1980s expanded our knowledge even further with MTV, an abundance of diverse music zines, and the growth of something known as “college radio.” By the end of the century, file trading and the web removed any barriers to learning about and listen to just about any band. All of which is to say “mea culpa” and apologies for my ignorance of the existence of a thriving late ‘70s/early ‘80s rock scene in New Zealand, much less of such a groundbreaking and entertaining band as the Clean, until the early 2000s.

Richard Langston’s The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul

New Zealand journalist Richard Langston is well-versed in the birth and evolution of his homeland’s rock music scene as he was involved with it at the time as a fan and zine publisher in the ‘80s. His recently-published tome, The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul, provides a wonderful and comprehensive oral history of the Clean, from the band’s humble D.I.Y. beginnings until the modern day. It’s a deceptively quick read, and not just because there are a lot of photos and such, but because Langston gets out of his subject’s way and just lets the commentary flow. Save for a few sentences here or a paragraph there to stitch the narrative together, Langston’s brilliance is in getting people talking and then just faithfully recording their memories. The result is a fast-paced story of a rock ‘n’ roll band that doesn’t depend on tawdry debauchery or tall tales to faithfully capture the band’s story.

Formed by brothers David and Hamish Kilgour in 1978 in Dunedin, New Zealand’s second largest-city, the Clean formulated a sound based on ‘60s-era pop, garage, and psychedelic rock blended with then current U.K. punk. The Clean ran through a handful of members, including good friend of the band Peter Gutteridge, before settling on a three-piece lineup that featured David on guitar and vocals, Hamish on drums, and Robert Scott on bass. All three musicians also wrote songs, albeit some more prolifically than others, and they began playing to sparse crowds in Dunedin and Auckland before releasing their debut single, “Tally Ho!” b/w “Platypus” in 1981 on New Zealand’s fledgling Flying Nun Records label. The record was a hit and was quickly followed by a 12” EP titled Boodle Boodle Boodle. Other seven-inchers and EPs followed, the band’s commercial success boosting Flying Nun’s shoestring operations.

The Clean’s Break-Up & Reunion

After a few years of living in a van while touring Dunedin, Auckland, Christchurch and locations in between these major New Zealand metropolises, the Clean essentially broke up, its members going onto various other musical projects, most notably Scott’s outfit the Bats. But the band’s incendiary live performances and scattering of vinyl was enough to help kickstart the New Zealand rock scene during the ‘80s, eventually taking it worldwide as bands like the Bats, Tall Dwarfs, and the Verlaines found audiences in the U.S. and in Europe. The Clean reunited in 1988 for a show in London opening for the Bats, and began playing and writing together again, resulting in their first full-length album, 1990’s Vehicle.  

Tours of the United States, Great Britain, and across Europe followed, as would uniformly-excellent records like 1994’s Modern Rock,1996’s Unknown Country, and 2001’s Getaway. Building a stateside audience that included indie rock fans like Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo and Matt Swanson of Lambchop, the band wrote a successful second chapter to an already influential career. Finding a stateside home with Merge Records (home to the almighty Superchunk!), the label released the exceptionally-comprehensive, two-disc, 46-song Anthology in 2003, introducing stateside fans to the band’s out-of-print early material. Merge also released the band’s final studio album, Mister Pop, in 2009 and they’ve also worked extensively with David Kilgour, releasing several of his solo albums and those with his band the Heavy Eights during the new millennium.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

This is just a condensed version of the Clean’s story – you’ll have to pick up the book to get the fascinating details – but should it whet your thirst to find out more about this great, underrated band (or the New Zealand rock scene itself), you owe it to yourself to pick up a copy of Langstons’ The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul. As a journalist, Langston covers all the bases, speaking with the band members, various friends and family of the band, other New Zealand musicians like Martin Phillipps of the Chills and Alec Bathgate and Chris Knox of Tall Dwarfs, as well as music biz supporters like Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records and my ol’ “buddy” Gerard Cosloy of Homestead and Matador Records. Langston fills in any empty corners with previously-published interviews, show and album reviews, as well as personal correspondence between the band members, friends and family.

A word, also, about the look of the book…it’s freakin’ gorgeous! The Clean had several photographer friends who documented the band over the years, and the band held onto memorabilia like artwork, posters, and such for decades. As a result, In the Dreamlife is profusely and beautifully illustrated with more cool graphics than a lot of books about better-known artists. Much like the Clean’s music, the book’s layout displays a certain intuitive genius, utilizing various type fonts and sizes to separate the underlying oral history with Langston’s commentary and other text. At its core, however, In the Dreamlife is a story of a rock band that dared to dream, and to do so on its own terms. The Clean were, at heart, a punk band but with a creatively unique sound that forever colored outside the lines and limitations of any genre or expectations. They inspired a generation of indie rockers to follow, and that’s a fine legacy, indeed… (Feral House, published April 7th, 2026)   

Buy the book direct from the publisher: Richard Langston’s The Clean: In the Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul 

Archive Review: Tab Benoit’s Legacy: The Best of Tab Benoit (2012)

Louisiana native Tab Benoit has become such a large part of the Baton Rouge/New Orleans blues community that his music and career is virtually indistinguishable from the region he’s identified with. While the talented songwriter and guitarist has often incorporated elements of swamp-rock, country, and Cajun music into his original vision of the blues, he has also become an outspoken and effective advocate for wetlands conversation and the victims of Hurricane Katrina, his social activism as heartfelt as his music.   

After spending much of the early 1990s on the Texas-based Justice Records label, Benoit signed with the venerable Telarc Records as the decade was closing. He released his Telarc debut, the acclaimed Homesick For the Road album, in 1999 and from that point on, Benoit has released an album almost every year, ten in all. Along the way he has built a loyal worldwide audience one dynamic performance at a time. Not for nothing has the singer, songwriter, and guitarist been twice named The Blues Foundation’s “B.B. King Entertainer of the Year,” most recently in 2012. With a fat catalog of great blues and roots music under his belt, it only makes sense that Telarc should honor the prolific and popular bluesman with the Legacy compilation, which collects 14 of Benoit’s best tracks on a single disc for the hardcore and fair-weather fan alike. 

Tab Benoit’s Legacy: The Best of Tab Benoit

The songs on Legacy aren’t presented in chronological order, so we start out with “Shelter Me,” a forceful swamp-blues dirge from 2007’s Power of the Pontchartrain album. Backed by Louisiana’s LeRoux, Benoit delivers a scorching performance that mixes a down-n-dirty soundtrack with soulful vocals to great effect; the result is so earthy that you’d swear you were knee-deep in cypress and swamp water while listening. Jump back to 2004 and “Night Train,” from Fever For the Bayou, with Benoit leading a three-piece band that puts the muscle back into the power-trio concept. The song itself is a rolling, roaring locomotive with Darryl White’s powerhouse drums fueling the rhythms while Benoit lays down some greasy guitar licks and gruff, hurried vocals. Benoit’s spirited solo less than two minutes into this high-octane rocker shows him to be a vastly underrated blues guitarist.

Legacy features around a 50-50 mix of Benoit’s lively originals versus obscure and well-worn covers, but the odds are good that you’ve seldom heard Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell On You” tossed around like a ragdoll, as it was on Benoit’s 1999 debut album. Capably assisted by fellow Louisiana music legend Kenny Neal, Benoit infuses the song with a bluesy malevolence missing from many cover versions, playing down the rock ‘n’ roll elements in favor of a slow-burning fuse approach. With Bruce Katz’s eerie organ riffs chiming away in the background, and Neal’s solid rhythm guitar as a backdrop, Benoit lets his freak flag fly with a series of short, shocking solos guaranteed to singe your eardrums.   

The Blues Is Here To Stay

    
Stephen Still’s classic Buffalo Springfield hit “For What It’s Worth” may seem an unlikely cover, but Benoit blues it up nicely, slowing down the pace and discarding the country-rock vibe in favor of a twangy blues-rock sound that relies heavily on Louisiana LeRoux’s enormous instrumental textures, on top of which Benoit lays down some smoky vocals and sizzling fretwork. Benoit was joined for his 2002 album Whiskey Store by fellow axe-mangler Jimmy Thackery, formerly of the Nighthawks and a successful solo artist in his own right. The two guitar virtuosos are backed by Steve Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble cohorts for the positively SRV-styled “Nice and Warm,” a Benoit original that rocks and rolls with jazzy intensity and a blues-rock heart. The chemistry between the two guitarists is natural and carefree, which would later lead to a live album featuring the two talents.

Benoit is joined by one of New Orleans’ favorite sons, Cyril Neville, for “The Blues Is Here To Stay.” Co-written by Neville with Norman Ceasar and the great Taj Mahal, the song is a sort of inspired history of modern blues music, Benoit and Neville swapping verses, both singers bringing a lot of joy to the lyrics as the guitarist adds his Delta-inspired, New Orleans-forged fretwork to play in the margins. Benoit displays a different side of his talents with a soulful cover of Otis Redding’s classic “These Arms of Mine,” from 2002’s Wetlands. Slowing down a bit to a grueling, heartbreaking pace, Benoit doesn’t mimic the Stax Records legend as much as pay tribute with a powerful, emotional vocal performance that is bolstered by his elegant guitarwork. Working with fellow bluesman Anders Osborne, Benoit and crew stomp and stammer all over the title track to his 2011 album Medicine, the performance resulting in a blistering, swampadelic houserocker.        

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

As somebody much wiser than myself once said, “too much of a good thing is never enough,” and in my mind you just can’t get too much Benoit in your listening diet. My only bellyache about Legacy is that while the album’s tracklist pulls from all ten of Benoit’s Telarc albums, six albums are only represented by a single song. An artist of Benoit’s stature in the blues community could have easily carried a two-disc “best of” set and offered up a couple songs apiece from all ten platters. That minor cavil aside, Legacy is both a wonderful introduction to this talented and revered bluesman for the newcomer, and a welcome reminder of Tab Benoit’s talents for the long-time fan. (Telarc Records, released April 3, 2012)

Archive Review: Jason Ringenberg’s Empire Builders (2004)

When “Little” Steven Van Zandt toured Europe during the early ‘80s with his Disciples of Soul band, he saw the sad results of Reagan administration foreign policy. Speaking with the people he met in the towns that he played, Van Zandt became politicized, a philosophical transformation that resulted in a brace of overtly political albums. The culmination of Little Steven’s left-leaning political evolution was the Sun City project, a direct artistic assault on South Afrikan apartheid.

Americana music pioneer Jason Ringenberg comes from quite a different background than the Jersey-born-and-bred Van Zandt. The son of an Illinois hog farmer, Ringenberg is more of an “aw shucks” populist than a tree-hugging leftist, and neither his previous solo work or his tenure as frontman for Jason & the Scorchers reveal little of his politics. While touring Europe and Australia in support of his All Over Creation solo disc, Jason found himself questioned and criticized over American policy and the actions of the current administration. It proved to be embarrassing and frustrating and it opened the artist’s eyes to a radically different perspective than that shown by Fox News.  

Jason Ringenberg’s Empire Builders

The result of Jason Ringenberg’s politicization is Empire Builders, his third solo rock album and strongest effort to date. The songs written for Empire Builders try to make sense of America’s place in a post-911 world and collectively evince a more critical view of the country. There is no flaming rhetoric or paint-by-numbers polemics on Empire Builders, nor is there any flag-waving jingoism. What you will find, however, is a cautious and considered artistic response to current events. The album opens with “American Question,” Jason thoughtfully asking “can we export dignity, respecting those who disagree” over Jim Roll’s taut recurring riff, the song a minimalist response to an American foreign policy of “bomb-em-and-Big-Mac-em.”

Several other songs on Empire Builders also touch on 21st century manifest destiny. “New-Fashioned Imperialist,” a jaunty satire of CEO stereotypes, is sung over the oompa riffing of Dave Jacques’ tuba while “American Reprieve” is a continuation of the opening cut, delivered as the kind of jazzy tone poem that you might expect from an artist like Ed Hammel, not good old Jason. “Rebel Flag In Germany” laughingly criticizes the “Confederate” mindset that is so prevalent in the south, including his adopted home of Tennessee. Jason’s embarrassment over seeing a rebel flag on a barn in Germany is equaled only by his shame at the fact that the flag – a symbol of racism and slavery no matter what the southern heritage Neanderthals claim – still flies on flagpoles and pick-up trucks across the south. 

Ringenberg balances out his social commentary with humanistic tales such as “Tuskegee Pride,” Jason’s love of history resulting in the masterfully crafted story of a World War II African-American pilot. The song remembers the racism that these brave soldiers and their families endured even while fighting for freedom for their children and grandchildren. It is a reminder that we still have a long way to go with the issue of race in this country. “Half the Man” is a loving tribute to his father while a rocking remembrance of guitarist Link Wray pays homage to the criminally overlooked rocker (with a little help from Los Straitjackets axeman Eddie Angel). All the songs on Empire Builders are presented in the twangy folk/rock/country hybrid that has become Jason’s signature sound. Former Webb Wilder sideman and longtime Jason foil George Bradfute lends his considerable six-string skills to most of the songs and Fats Kaplin fills out the sound with some tasty pedal steel guitar.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

After twenty-something years on the old rock ‘n’ roll highway, Jason continues to grow and mature as a performer and a songwriter. Ringenberg doesn’t claim to have all the answers on Empire Builders, but he does ask some mighty damn good questions… (Courageous Chicken/Yep Roc Records, released 2004)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™ zine...

The Reverend's Guide to Record Store Day 2026

For those of you who celebrate the holiday, Record Store Day is rapidly approaching, and if you haven’t scanned the list of available hot wax at least a dozen times by now, what sort of record collector are you? It’s shaping up to be one of the best RSD events in recent memory – sure, there are a bunch of major label retreads, reissues of albums you didn’t want to buy when they were new, and gimmicky picture discs and 3” records (really…this is something we needed?) – but this spring’s sale also includes a bunch of previously-unreleased studio and live gems worth your time and money.

What follows below is the Reverend’s carefully-curated list of Record Store Releases that I’ll be spending my hard-earned coin on buying. There are other titles of merit on this year’s list – your tastes may vary – as well as more than a few albums that I already own on vinyl and/or CD and see no reason to part with a dollar to get the newest and hottest version of such. The below-listed flapjacks are those that I think will provide the most bang for your buck, and to buy every LP here will run you a cool $300+ so if you haven’t been saving your pennies (do they still exist?), well, shame on you… 

Marshall Crenshaw - The Bootleg Sounds of Marshall Crenshaw: 1984-87 (Yep Roc Records)
    Crenshaw is a helluva songwriter and performer, so The Bootleg Sounds of Marshall Crenshaw: 1984-87 promises to be a real banger. Marshall personally dug through his archives to assemble this special vinyl release, which includes unreleased recordings, demo tapes, and live takes recorded during the noted time period that resulted in acclaimed LPs like Downtown, Mary Jane & 9 Others, and Good Evening. The 14-track album includes a bunch of original tunes as well as covers of Gene Pitney’s “Town Without Pity” and Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day,” recorded with Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg of the E Street Band. Fun fact: Crenshaw portrayed Holly in the 1987 Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba, performing Holly’s “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” in the movie and on the soundtrack album. 

The dB’s - Cycles Per Second: US Tour 2024 (Propeller Sound Recordings) 
    Peter Holsapple and the dB’s have enjoyed a modicum of “rediscovery” these past few years, and justifiably so…the band’s power-pop flecked, old school indie rock sound is unique to the dB’s, one of the finest bands from the 1980s ‘college rock’ era. Propeller Sound Recordings reissued the band’s first two albums – 1981’s Stands for deciBels and 1982’s Repercussion – a couple years back, which resulted in a 2024 reunion tour featuring all four original band members (yes, even Chris Stamey!). Cycles Per Second is a document of that tour, a baker’s dozen of classic dB’s tunes including fan faves like “Black and White,” “Love Is For Lovers,” “Lonely Is,” and the scorching “Amplifier.” The album has been pressed on ‘firework splatter’ vinyl for RSD and includes a full-color inset of tour photos.

The Dream Syndicate - Sketches For Medicine Show (Fire Records)
    The Dream Syndicate released a wonderful, deluxe four-CD box set of the band’s 1984 sophomore album Medicine Show late last year, and fans thought that was about all that the archives held for that period of the band’s history. Come Record Store Day 2026, however, a new chapter will be written with Sketches For Medicine Show, a collection of rare recordings circa 1983-84 that includes a handful of rehearsal recordings and live tracks including the band’s unique version of Bob Dylan’s “Knocking On Heaven’s Door” and Bonnie Dobson’s anti-war folk classic “Morning Dew.” Syndicate frontman Steve Wynn has assured fans via social media that none of the seven tracks on Sketches were included on the deluxe box set, so this LP offers all new munchies for your ears. This may also be the rarest of this year’s RSD releases, with only 600 copies distributed regionally.

Freddie King - Feeling Alright: The Complete 1975 Nancy Jazz Pulsation Concerts (Elemental Music)
    There aren’t that many blues releases on this spring’s RSD slate, but this triple-disc Freddie King live set should make up for the lack of quantity with a collection of unparalleled quality. Capturing the legendary blues guitarist performing before 50,000 fans at France’s Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival in October 1975, the album is previously unreleased. Produced by award-winning reissue wizard Zev Feldman, and sourced from original ORTF (Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française) recordings, the discs are pressed on 180-gram vinyl and the title is authorized by King’s estate. The release includes appreciations of the artists from his daughter Wanda King and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons as well as extensive liner notes from music journalist and historian (and a friend of mine) Cary Baker. If a three-LP set is a bit too rich for your bank account, budget-friendly CD and digital versions will be released on April 24th. 

Ngozi Family - Gate Crash ’78 (Now-Again Records)
    This Zamrock stuff scratches a 1970s-era rock ‘n’ roll itch you didn’t know you had, and everything I’ve heard from the Ngozi Family, Paul Ngozi, Chrissy Zebby Tembo, Witch, and other bands from Zambia’s ‘70s rock scene is of uniformly high quality and high energy. Gate Crash ’78 is a long-lost Ngozi Family/Chrissy Zebby Tembo album that was test-pressed but never released back in the day. This is number one on my RSD hit parade, and once you’ve heard guitarist Paul Ngozi, it’ll be high on your list too. Now-Again Records has done an admirable job in documenting this obscure corner of rock ‘n’ roll history, and Gate Crash ’78 carries on the tradition with an eight-page booklet featuring rare photos and details on the Ngozi Family’s amazing history.

The Ramones - Live In San Francisco (Rhino Records)
    Another year and another live Ramones disc hits the shelves – and we have Rhino Records to thank! The tracklists on all these authorized live hubcaps, as well as most of the recent glut of bootleg vinyl, don’t vary by that many songs and, well, they’re the Ramones, so they mostly all deliver the same electrifying tightrope walk of sound. But we fanatics buy ‘em up anyway, like good little lemmings collecting baseball cards, and since this is a long overdue authorized release of the band’s 1979 City Hall Plaza show in San Francisco for the End of the Century tour, we’ll probably buy this one as well. Often bootlegged (notably as City Hall by Bad Joker Records and Live 1977 & 1979 by Live Wire Productions), the legit release offers up 27 songs on two LPs pressed on 140-gram ‘neon pink’ vinyl. 

Runt w/Todd Rundgren - The Necessary Cosmic Frenzy (Rhino Records)
    This is another title high on my “buy” list, the first ever solo performance by rock legend and innovator, Todd Rundgren. Runt was Rundgren’s first band after the Nazz – it was really a solo joint to begin with – and he’d be billed under his own name soon after the release of the lone, self-titled and excellent Runt album in 1970. This live performance from Philadelphia’s Sigma Sound Studios took place on June 30th, 1971 and was broadcast by WMMR-FM radio. Rundgren was backed for the occasion by his future Utopia bandmember “Moogy” Klingman, bassist Stu Wood, guitarist Tom Cosgrove, and drummer Norman “N.D.” Smart. Rundgren would leave Runt in the rearview mirror with the release of the expansive Something/Anything? two-album set in 1972 and the rest, as they say, is history.

Thin Lizzy - Live In Cleveland 1976 (UMR/Vertigo Records)
    After several years spent treading the boards, British hard rock band Thin Lizzy, fronted by an Irish singer, songwriter, and bassist – the musical genius that was Phil Lynott – broke through to stateside audiences in 1976 with a pair of acclaimed albums, Jailbreak and Johnny the Fox. This FM radio broadcast was originally included as part of 2024’s six-disc 1976 box set, broken out here as a stand-alone 2-LP set pressed on transparent vinyl. The May 1976 concert, broadcast on Cleveland’s WMMS-FM, includes most of the songs from Jailbreak as well as a handful of earlier tunes. I have personal knowledge of the depth of WMMS’s tape archives, and if they’re starting to produce these live shows for vinyl reissue, we collectors are in for a treat!      

Honorable Mention (i.e. other groovy RSD releases to consider): Dr. Feelgood’s Oil City Confidential, the soundtrack to director Julien Temple’s 2009 film about the influential 1970s British R&B band; The Gits’ Etcetera, an odds ‘n’ sods collection of rarities and live tracks from the ill-fated but influential punk rock band; The Mooney Suzuki’s People Get Ready, a 25th anniversary reissue of the Detroit sound-adjacent rockers’ classic album with a bonus 1999 concert disc; John Prine’s BBC Sessions, a nine-song collection of material from the acclaimed singer/songwriter’s first two albums, performed live on BBC radio; Terry Callier’s At The Earl of Old Town, a cool live show from the 1970s-era folk/jazz/blues guitarist (who found a modicum of fame in the 1990s in the U.K.); and SRC’s Milestones, the Detroit rocker’s acclaimed sophomore album, a masterful mix of hard rock, prog, and British Invasion influences. 

Archive Review: Duke Robillard’s Stomp! The Blues Tonight (2009)

Throughout a career that has spanned four decades, guitarist Duke Robillard has brought his immense talents to bear on a vast range of blues, jazz, and R&B music. Beginning with his influential band Roomful of Blues, through his brief tenure with Texas blues barn-burners the Fabulous Thunderbirds, to a lengthy solo career that has earned the skilled instrumentalist a wealth of awards and accolades, Duke Robillard has never been content with resting on past laurels as he challenges himself with a variety of stylistic exercises.

Robillard’s Stomp! The Blues Tonight follows the acclaimed 2008 release A Swingin Session With, a collection of golden-era jazz brought up to speed with a contemporary edge. With Stomp! The Blues Tonight, Robillard has attempted to recreate the authentic sound and energy of 1940s and ‘50s-era rhythm and blues, the kind of swingin’ soul-blues music practiced by singers and guitarists like Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, Roy Milton, Lowell Fulson, Pee Wee Crayton and others. To help achieve his goals, Robillard some of his former Roomful of Blues mates: saxophonists Doug James and Rich Lataille and cornet player Al Basile.  

Duke Robillard’s Stomp! The Blues Tonight

Credited to Duke Robillard’s Jumpin’ Blues Revue, Stomp! The Blues Tonight is a lively, high-energy collection of rhythm-infused blues and R&B, not dissimilar to what Robillard used to perform with Roomful of Blues back in the day. The disc opens with the guitarist’s original title track, a performance so stylistically spot-on that none but the expert (or the hardcore fan) could carbon-date the sucker any decade later than the 1950s. With a raucous, ramped-up opening and swinging horns, Robillard’s hepcat vocals and fine guitar tone are matched by the horn section’s timely blasts of cold air.

A cover of blues legend Lowell Fulson’s “Do Me Right” is elegant and well-dressed courtesy of the deep groove provided by Robillard’s jazzy fretwork, which itself is accompanied by Doug James’ honkin’ sax and Bruce Bears’ filigree pianowork. Although Robillard’s vocals aren’t quite the equal of Fulson’s (few are, really), he acquits himself well by not trying to over-emote, instead delivering a subdued, but soulful vocal turn.

West Coast Jump Blues

West Coast R&B giant Roy Milton’s wonderful, rocking “Baby, You Don’t Know” benefits from the full-band effort of Robillard’s Jumpin’ Blues Revue, the song’s strong underlying rhythm provided by its swaying hornplay as Bears’ nimble-fingered piano lies just beneath the vocals in the mix. Robillard’s guitar is understated, but no less potent, as it threads itself beneath the ever present horns.

The traditional “Frankie and Johnny” is gussied up by Robillard, framed as an instrumental showcase for his six-string talents. With the horns playing gently behind him, and drummer Mark Teixeira providing a lively up-tempo beat, Robillard embroiders the song with his vibrant guitarwork. By the time that saxman James jumps into the fray, Robillard is moving full-throttle, and the song ends with a cooling piano note and dropped drumbeat.

Introducing Sunny Crownover

Robillard’s protégé, Ms. Sunny Crownover, is given center stage for “I Wanna Hug You, Kiss You, Squeeze You.” Half purring kitten, half wildcat growl, Crownover’s sultry vocals bring an entirely different dimension to Robillard’s material, providing a fine counterpoint to the guitarist’s blue-eyed soul. As the band rages behind her, you can just imagine Crownover tossing her hips and making the boys swoon like a film clip from the 1940s as she belts out the song.

Crownover displays her full range with the raucous original “Look But Don’t Touch.” With a steady strolling beat behind her, Ms Sunny knocks out the song with joy, lyrically showing a prospective suitor the door as Robillard’s nimble fretwork jumps-n-jives across the ribald rhythms. “Jumpin’ The Bone,” an original Robillard/James instrumental that plays like a 1940s jazzbo throwback, jukes and jumps across the grooves with frenetic guitar licks and rollicking hornplay.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The best thing about a hearing a brand new Duke Robillard album for the first time is that while you’re never quite sure where he’s driving, you know that you’re always going to enjoy the ride. Such is the case with Stomp! The Blues Tonight, a retro-delight that features a perfect balance between Robillard’s skilled six-string chops and the invigorating, Doug James-led horn section. 

Throw in Sunny Crownover’s feminine wiles as a counterpoint to Robillard’s gruffer vocals on an inspired mix of covers and original songs that were carefully-crafted to evoke an earlier era of the blues, and Stomp! The Blues Tonight is a complete rockin’-n-rollin’ success story certain to please your ears even as it sets your toes-a-tappin’! (Stony Plain Records, released 2009)

Archive Review: Omar Dykes’ Runnin’ With the Wolf (2013)

Both as a solo artist and as the esteemed frontman of the Austin, Texas-based Omar & the Howlers, bluesman Omar Kent Dykes has made no secret of the artists that have influenced him. His 2009 solo debut, Big Town Playboy, is filled with classic blues and R&B songs from the likes of Eddie Taylor, John Lee Hooker, Ivory Joe Hunter, and others. A couple of years previous, Dykes had collaborated with guitarist Jimmie Vaughan on an acclaimed collection of Jimmy Reed tunes titled On The Jimmy Reed Highway, and the Howlers’ live performances have been known to include a Willie Dixon or Little Walter tune among Dykes’ spirited originals.

It should come as no surprise that Dykes’ second solo album would be a full-blown tribute to one of the singer, songwriter, and guitarist’s major influences and blues idols, the one and only Chester Arthur Burnett – better known to blues fans as the great Howlin’ Wolf. Dykes’ singing style owes more than a casual nod towards the Wolf, while musically you’ll also find a debt to Burnett running through Howlers’ albums like Big Delta or Boogie Man. Runnin’ With the Wolf pays its respects to the Mississippi-born blues great with fourteen performances of songs written by, or made famous by Howlin’ Wolf, with a single Dykes’ original thrown in for good measure.  

Omar Dykes’ Runnin’ With the Wolf

The album kicks off with Dykes’ greasy, gritty original ode to the Wolf, the title track a heartfelt tribute to the blues great that stitches together his well-known song titles into a sort of running narrative that’s delivered with a deliberate growl and a low-slung groove that offers up plenty of Dykes’ and Derek O’Brien’s slinky guitar licks riding shotgun to Ted Roddy’s blazing harpwork. Bassist Ronnie James slaps his acoustic bass with all the subtlety of a young Willie Dixon while drummer Wes Starr keeps steady time behind the other instrumentalists. It’s a fine way to open the album, the song capturing the spirit of Burnett’s Memphis days in both sound and ambiance.

From here, Dykes is off to the races with a veritable musical buffet of Wolf’s greatest hits. “Killin’ Floor,” with its familiar riff and rhythm, has been covered in one form or another by seemingly every blues-rock outfit, from Michael Bloomfield’s Electric Flag to Jimi Hendrix. Dykes and crew play it pretty straight, keeping the traditional sound and vibe while hanging a bit of fringe around the edges in the form of Dykes’ imaginative six-string flourishes. The Wolf’s signature song “Howlin’ For My Baby” is in good hands here, Dykes approximating both Wolf’s lusty vocals but also the song’s jaunty, upbeat tenor. Guitarist Eve Monsees adds some spicy licks, not unlike the great Hubert Sumlin, above the powerful backbeat pounded out by bassist James and drummer Mike Buck.

Smokestack Lightning

Burnett’s “Smokestack Lightning” was one of the first big late 1950s hits during the singer’s early tenure with Chess Records, and Dykes does the master proud with a lively, albeit menacing take that delivers all of the Wolf’s original malevolence, down to the anguished howls, as O’Brien picks out a mesmerizing, circular guitar riff and Roddy’s harmonica dances precariously atop the song’s rudimentary rhythms. Neither does Dykes ignore some of the Wolf’s lesser-known gems on Runnin’ With the Wolf, the up-tempo pace of “I’m Leavin’ You” belying the heartbreak emotion of the lyrics, bassist James and drummer Wes Starr laying down a healthy rhythm track for Dykes and O’Brien to embroider their entangled guitars throughout. 

Wolf’s “Do the Do” was always an underrated barn-burner in the Wolf’s catalog, and Dykes’ bangs it out with reckless aplomb, his gruff vocals rising and falling in counterpoint to the instrumental chaos raging on behind him, centered on Monsee’s monster guitarwork and saxophonist Mark Kazanoff’s blast of icy-cold emotion. The Wolf always had a lot of luck with Willie Dixon’s songs and, for the first half of the 1960s, he turned to the songwriter/producer almost exclusively, scoring hits with tracks like the ethereal “Spoonful,” probably the only performance here that Dykes doesn’t nail 100%. Dixon’s “Back Door Man” fares better, the band stringing out a Cajun-spiced rhythm behind Dykes’ gritty vox, but the Dixon-penned “Wang Dang Doodle” is one of the highlights of Runnin’ With the Wolf. A 1960 R&B chart hit for Wolf, who reportedly hated the song, it was a bigger hit for Koko Taylor a few years later. Dykes and gang sound like they’re lighting the juke-joint on fire with this version, rocking the song with an exuberant performance that rolls until dawn breaks before fading slowly into black. 

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Dykes and the talented players he recruited for Runnin’ With the Wolf play it close to the vest with their performances, not trying to duplicate the original versions, but attempting to capture the magic that has made Howlin’ Wolf and his gang one of the most enduring legends of the blues. They do a great job, sounding enough like those old records to spark your imagination, but adding enough of their own flourishes that they truly pay tribute to the giant of an artist that was Chester Arthur Burnett. Kudos, Omar! (Provogue Records, released July 9, 2013)

 

Omar Kent Dykes

 

Archive Review: Omar & the Howlers’ Essential Collection (2012)

For almost three-and-a-half decades, gravel-throated Omar Kent Dykes and his Austin, Texas based band the Howlers have delivered cheap thrills and sonic chills with their high-octane blend of roots-rock, hard-edged blues, and reckless Texas soul. The band enjoyed brief mainstream fame during the Stevie Ray Vaughan-fueled blues-rock boom of the 1980s with the major label release of 1987’s Hard Times In the Land of Plenty, but they’ve mostly gone the independent route since, releasing a dozen studio and live albums on labels like Bullseye, Black Top, Watermelon Records and, most recently, for Ruf Records, becoming a beloved blues institution along the way.
 
Although Dykes has slowed down a bit over the past few years, his storied career as a singer, songwriter, and guitarist continues unabated in these early years of the 21st century. Still, considering all that the man has achieved musically, it’s not too soon to take a look back and remind long-time fans and newcomers alike of what Dykes himself calls “a long and rich journey.” Omar & the Howlers’ Essential Collection is a two-disc, thirty-song compilation that encompasses nearly the entirety of Dykes’ career, pulling songs from as far back as the band’s 1984 sophomore album I Told You So through 2004’s Boogie Man, their last studio record, as well as Dykes’ acclaimed 2007 collaboration with guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, On the Jimmy Reed Highway and various live sets.   

Omar & the Howlers’ Essential Collection

Essential Collection is broken down into two distinct parts – the first disc offers up 15 red-hot slabs of houserockin’ blues, songs that could rightfully be considered Omar & the Howlers’ “greatest hits,” while the second disc delivers 15 equally scorching tracks hand-chosen by Mr. Dykes himself as representing some of his favorite moments with the band. The performances captured by the first CD are like a plate of greasy, BBQ sauce-drenched ribs, satisfying in ways that you won’t realize until you’re hungry for more. Some of these songs are quite familiar, beginning with the rollicking live version of “Hard Times In the Land of Plenty,” an insightful bluesy protest song that rings as true today as it did 25 years ago.

The set also includes performances like the raucous, Bo Diddley-styled “Magic Man,” another live track which is dedicated to the R&B legend, or the more traditionally-styled early effort “East Side Blues,” which evokes a 1950s-era Chicago blues vibe. “Border Girl” is a slice of Texas roadhouse blues that displays a softer side to Dykes’ typically-gruff vocals while also showcasing his underrated but exemplary six-string skills. The jaunty “Big Chief Pontiac” is another variation from the Howlers’ usual modus operandi, a fast-paced Commander Cody-styled rockabilly/blues hybrid with plenty of heart and soul. The swamp-blues of “Muddy Springs Road” features a fleshed-out version of the Howlers with keyboards and the late Gary Primich’s mournful harmonica wails, while the swinging “Jimmy Reed Highway” is the best of a brace of great songs performed with Vaughan.       

Omar’s Picks

If the first disc of Essential Collection is like a delicious plate o’ ribs, the second CD – Omar’s picks – is like a jar of moonshine to help wash the smoky meat ‘n’ gristle down your gullet. The set kicks off with “I Want You,” the song a reckless, ramshackle blues-rocker that offers up wide swaths of piercing fretwork and chiming keyboards above a locomotive rhythm. The slinky “Snake Rhythm Rock” features the late Stephen Bruton’s slippery slide-guitar riffing alongside Dykes’ low-slung vocals and the band’s choogling rhythms. The spry “Work Song” is a throwback to the 1940s, an R&B revue-styled romp that features a sordid tale delivered perfectly by Dykes’ sultry vocals above a swinging soundtrack that includes the soulful hornplay of David “Fathead” Newman and Mark “Kaz” Kazanoff.   
 

The rough-edged, swamp-rock of “Alligator Wine” offers up one of Dykes’ best growling, howling vocal performances above Derek O’Brien’s stinging guitar notes and a deliberate rhythm track taken straight from Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” playbook. By way of contrast, “Stone Cold Blues” wears its admiration for Howlin’ Wolf on its sleeve, the song’s Mississippi Delta blues pedigree outlined by Dykes’ whiskey-throated vocals and the serpentine interplay of Dykes’ and Malcolm Welbourne’s barbed-wire fretwork. The collection’s lone cover song is a lo-fi acoustic-blues reading of Willie Dixon’s classic “Built For Comfort” with Dykes’ reverent vocals matched by Magic Slim’s fluid guitar lines, Ivan Sand’s lonesome banjo fills creeping in at the edges of the song and providing a Piedmont blues vibe to the performance.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

A truly career-spanning retrospection, Omar & the Howlers’ Essential Collection showcases the many facets of Omar Kent Dykes and his various Howlers line-ups, the band consistently and joyfully delivering energetic, imaginative, and entertaining blues, rock, and soul with Dykes’ singular voice and talent leading the way. Although I personally would have enjoyed hearing some of the Hard Times In the Land of Plenty tracks like “Border Girl” or “Mississippi Hoo Doo Man” in their original form, major label licensing may have proved to be too costly for a (justifiably) budget-conscious band. 

The lack of the Columbia Records material is a minor cavil, however, and the live versions of those songs are performed with great enthusiasm. Although Omar & the Howlers have long been favorite sons in Europe, where they’ve developed a loyal audience, they remain less well-known stateside. U.S. blues fans should give Essential Collection a listen…while there’s nothing new here for the hardcore faithful, for the casual fan or newcomer the set offers a passionate and heartfelt style of blues as only Omar Kent Dykes could deliver. (Ruf Records, released February 14, 2012)

 

Omar & the Howlers

 

Archive Review: Omar Kent Dykes & Jimmy Vaughan’s On the Jimmy Reed Highway (2007)

On paper, it must have seemed like a match made in heaven for German blues label Ruf Records. Combine gravel-throated vocalist Omar Kent Dykes, frontman for Texas blues-rock institution Omar & the Howlers, with extraordinary guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, formerly of the Fabulous Thunderbirds, for a tribute album to blues giant Jimmy Reed. ‘Nuff said…

Lofty conceptual albums – especially tributes – often tend to fall flat on their face when the execution fails to meet the high standard of creative expectations. In the case of On the Jimmy Reed Highway, however, Dykes and Vaughan succeed beyond the listener’s wildest dreams. On this entertaining tribute disc, the talented duo don’t try to recreate the Reed songbook for the modern era as much as they transport the listener back in time to the mid-1950s Chicago blues scene with their reverent, but highly-rocking interpretations of classic Reed material. 

Honoring The Jimmy Reed Legacy

The story of singer and songwriter Jimmy Reed is, perhaps, one of the most bittersweet in a blues genre filled with heartbreak and tragedy. After several missteps and false starts at launching a music career in Chicago during the early 1950s, Reed was introduced to the fledgling Vee-Jay Records label by bluesman Albert King. Recording with musical partner Eddie Taylor, and sporting songs often co-written by his wife Mary (Reed was said to be functionally illiterate), the blue singer reeled off a string of 14 R&B chart hits, eleven of which also hit the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart.

Although most blues historians consider Reed to be a minor figure in the Chicago blues pantheon, his position as a popular artist is unassailable. Although he was a merely average guitarist and harmonica player (in a city littered with talented head-cutters), Reed possessed a warm, friendly voice with a way of lyrical phrasing and a sense of melody that appealed to record buyers. At his peak, Reed outsold contemporaries like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and many of his songs – admittedly simple tunes that touched upon universal themes of life and romance – have become blues standards, covered by artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, Jr. and the Rolling Stones.

Rocking & Rolling On The Jimmy Reed Highway

With On the Jimmy Reed Highway, Dykes and Vaughan celebrate the overwhelming achievements, not the tragedies of Reed’s short life. The rockabilly-tinged Dykes’ original, “Jimmy Reed Highway,” sets the stage for what would follow. Dykes honors Reed’s influence with this rollicking tribute song, name checking bluesmen like Lightning Slim, Lazy Lester, and Reed’s longtime partner, Eddie Taylor. Lou Ann Barton provides her welcome backing vocals while Vaughan injects a muscular guitar solo.

The rest of the track listing consists of songs that Reed either wrote or popularized, including R&B chart hits like “Big Boss Man,” “Baby What You Want Me To Do,” and “Bright Lights Big City” (the two combined here as a swinging medley). Dykes and Vaughan also tackle lesser-known Reed fare like “Good Lover,” presented here with a thick guitar tone and Barton’s brassy vocals juxtaposed against Dykes’ earthy growl. The slow-paced, sultry “Caress Me Baby” also features Barton and vintage mouth harp work courtesy of blues legend James Cotton.

The swaggering rhythm of “You Upset My Mind” is supported by a soulful vocal performance by Dykes, and blasting harmonica from Vaughan’s former bandmate Kim Wilson. “I’ll Change My Style” is an infectious R&B ballad with Vaughan’s great guitar resonance and tone behind the vocals. Other songs feature guest spots from skilled harmonica player Gary Primich and singer, harp-player, and Texas roots-music legend Delbert McClinton.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

If you’re a mark for the Chicago blues, grab a copy of On the Jimmy Reed Highway today – do not stop, and do not pass go. You’ll thank the Reverend later. If you’re new to the blues, you’ll find Omar Kent Dykes, Jimmie Vaughan and friends to be engaging hosts, providing an excellent introduction to the form with On the Jimmy Reed Highway. After listening to these passionate renditions from the Jimmy Reed songbook, you’ll be a blues fan for life. (Ruf Records, released 2007)

Archive Review: Muddy Waters’ The Montreux Years (2021)

The Montreux Jazz Festival was launched in June 1967 and while the esteemed annual event, held on the Lake Geneva shoreline in Switzerland, may be best-known as the setting for Deep Purple’s classic early ‘70s hit “Smoke On the Water,” there’s a lot more to the festival than the infamous casino fire that served as the song’s antagonist. Whereas the festival originally featured jazz (or jazzy) artists like Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Weather Report, and Soft Machine, by 1970 the three-day musical celebration had expanded to include rock ‘n’ blues performers like B.B. King, Pink Floyd, the Mothers of Invention, Buddy Guy, Chuck Berry, Van Morrison and, well, Deep Purple playing alongside folks like Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, and Billy Cobham. Chicago blues legend Muddy Waters was one of many talented artists to grace the Montreux Jazz Festival stage, an event he performed three times before his death in 1983, appearing in 1972, 1974, and 1977. 

The decade of the ‘70s was a fruitful one for Waters, critically and commercially, beginning with winning his first Grammy™ Award for his 1971 album They Call Me Muddy Waters. A year later he released The London Muddy Waters Sessions, the blues great recording with British acolytes such as Rory Gallagher, Mitch Mitchell, and Rick Grech, the album earning Waters his second Grammy™. Muddy would continue to work with younger musicians, The Muddy Waters Woodstock Album featuring Levon Helm and Garth Hudson from the Band as well as a friend from back in Chicago, Paul Butterfield. Waters’ association with blues-rock guitarist Johnny Winter lead to a critically-acclaimed trio of late ‘70s studio albums (and one live set) that would earn Waters two more Grammy™ Awards and cap off a truly legendary career.

Muddy Waters’ The Montreux Years 

The recently-released The Montreux Years cherry-picks sixteen of the finest songs from Waters’ three appearances at the Montreux Jazz Festival. The first of a planned series that now includes releases by Etta James, Marianne Faithful, and Nina Simone, The Montreux Years albums dig into the festival’s rich half-century-plus of musical history. The Muddy Waters CD is packaged in a classy square-bound book with several rare photos and extensive liner notes by writer Brett J. Bonner, and it is also available as a two-LP set with all the songs. Waters’ three appearances at Montreux saw him fronting some of the best blues bands he ever enjoyed as a bandleader. The 1972 performance features the Aces – brothers Louis and Dave Meyers on guitar and bass, with drummer Fred Below – as well as pianist Lafayette Leake and harmonica player George ‘Mojo’ Buford.

Waters’ 1974 appearance featured a band that included talents like guitarists Buddy Guy and Terry Taylor, harmonica wizard Junior Wells, bass player Bill Wyman (yes, that Bill Wyman!), pianist Pinetop Perkins, and drummer Dallas Taylor (who had played with Crosby, Stills & Nash, Van Morrison, and others). His final appearance at Montreux, in 1977, offered what was probably his strongest band ever, with guitarists ‘Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin and Luther ‘Guitar Junior’ Johnson, bassists Calvin Jones and Bill Wyman, old friend Pinetop Perkins, harmonica player Jerry Portnoy, and drummer Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith, who would later form The Legendary Blues Band with other Waters’ band alumni. 

It is with a song from the 1977 show that The Montreux Years kicks off, Waters taking control of the stage with a slow-burning cover of former band member Otis Spann’s “Nobody Knows Chicago Like I Do.” Waters’ performance is deliberate, albeit powerful, his vocals accompanied by Portnoy’s creative harmonica trills, Perkins’ dancing 88s, and silver threads of elegant fretwork. The tracklist on The Montreux Years isn’t in any sort of chronological order, so we jump backwards from 1977 to ‘74 and a raucous performance of one of Waters’ signature songs, “Mannish Boy.” Waters’ swaggering vocals propel the song, with the band rock steady and locked into a groove as Guy embellishes Waters’ vocals with shards of jagged guitar and Wells blasts his harp on the edges.

Muddy Waters at Newport photo by Diana Davies

Old School Chicago Blues

Returning to 1972, The Montreux Years offers three blistering, dynamic, knock-yer-sox off performances from oldest-of-the-old-school Chicago blues talents. Fronting a band featuring the Aces, who had previously played behind Junior Wells and Little Water, Waters takes listeners back to the classroom with scorched-earth readings of “Long Distance Call,” “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” and “County Jail.” A Top 10 R&B chart hit for Waters in 1951, twenty years later he still belts out “Long Distance Call” like the club is on fire, including a humorous spoken-word finishing verse that leads to the band’s vamping outro. “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” is an obvious crowd favorite, the band digging a rhythmic groove so deep you could drive a truck into it, Waters’ hearty vox rising above ‘Mojo’ Buford’s subtle harpwork and Fred Below’s firm timekeeping.

A pair of well-worn Waters’ tunes from the 1977 show brighten up the grooves after the slow-walking, dark-hued blues of “Country Jail.” A number three R&B chart hit in 1954, “I’m Your Hoochie Coochie Man” is a staggering, blustery blues classic while 1956’s “Got My Mojo Working,” although it didn’t perform nearly as well on the charts as its predecessor, would nevertheless become an audience favorite and a blues standard in its own right. The former song demands your respect as Waters’ lays waste to any modern rapper’s boasts with his testosterone-fueled braggadocio while the latter song is a runaway freight train of screeching guitars, shouted backing vocals, raging harmonica work, and fleet-fingered honky-tonk piano-pounding. 

“I’m Ready,” another 1954 Top Ten chart hit, sounds almost pedestrian by comparison to the two previous performances, but this 1974 take plays up the song’s jazzy undercurrents with smooth yet menacing vocals by Waters accompanied by Wells’ fluid harp-play and Perkins’ lively piano riffs. The Montreux Years includes a number of songs from Waters’ extensive catalog that aren’t as well-known despite their mileage, and the performances here display the full extent of the singer, songwriter, and bandleader’s immense talents. The love-gone-wrong blues “Rosalie” dates back to the early ‘40s and Waters’ earliest recordings, made by Alan Lomax for the Library of Congress on the Stovell Plantation in Mississippi. It benefits here from some crazed guitar-wonkery by Waters, matched in electricity by Buford’s manic harmonica. 

“Howlin’ Wolf” is an odd song, sharing a name with Waters’ longtime ‘frenemy” and fellow blues great Chester Burnett a/k/a the mighty Howlin’ Wolf. Originally recorded in 1951, it remained unreleased until 1971’s They Call Me Muddy Waters compilation. This 1977 performance showcases Margolin’s fiery fretwork and Portnoy’s hurricane-force harmonica blasts, which drive home the intensity of Waters’ vocals. From 1974’s often-overlooked Unk In Funk album, the last Waters album he would record for the venerable Chess Records before it went belly-up, comes a 1974 performance of “Electric Man,” co-written by Terry Abrahamson. A Chicago Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Abrahamson had songs recorded by Waters, George Thorogood, John Lee Hooker, Johnny Winter, James Cotton, and several others, so he was a big part of the scene at the time. “Electric Man” is a classic Chicago-styled blues tune with larger-than-life lyrics delivered pitch-perfect by Waters and accompanied by Wells’ nuanced harmonica playing and Perkins’ graceful keyboard runs. 

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Reaching him by email, former Waters’ guitarist Bob Margolin pointed to an article he wrote for Blues Revue magazine that offered his memories of the blues giant. “What kind of person can so powerful a musician be? I’ve been asked that constantly in interviews and by blues lovers ever since I joined Muddy’s band right up until now. I’ve developed a stock (but sincere, concise, and informative) answer: “Muddy was one of those very few who had true ‘charisma.’ He affected people in a spiritual way, both with his music and personally. I’ve had a lot of thrills while I was in Mud’s band, but the biggest was playing his blues with him onstage.” As displayed by The Montreux Years, Muddy Waters was an artist of great talent, vision, and dignity and he’s the perfect choice to launch the Montreux Sounds series. (Montreux Sounds/BMG, released 2021)

Review originally published by the Rock and Roll Globe...