Friday, February 14, 2025

Archive Review: The Cocktail Slippers’ Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre (2009)

Cocktail Slippers’ Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre
Fair or no, all-girl bands are judged by either the commercial success of such distaff outfits as the Go-Gos and the Bangles, or by nostalgia-enhanced memories of the queens of proto-punk, the Runaways. Never mind that female rock bands, though fewer in number than their masculine counterparts, are just as diverse, quirky, and creative as any other band, regardless of critical biases or preconceived notions.

This is the critical and commercial environment that welcomes Norway’s Cocktail Slippers, a five-woman band of Scandinavian bad girls, unabashed rockers all with hearts of gold. Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, the band’s sophomore effort, is a modern-day classic of garage-pop goodness, evoking memories of both the raging femininity of Ronnie Spector and the Ronettes as well as the snarling tomboy, take-no-shit attitude of Joan Jett’s best solo work.

The band members collectively write a fair rockin’ song, sweeter than the Donnas, punkier than the Eyeliners, and tunes like “You Do Run,” with their vocal harmonies and whipsmart lyricism, slashes of manic guitar and explosive drumbeats, pay homage to 40+ years of girl-group history. “Gotta Crush” is a delightful throwback to a simpler era, with engaging harmonies, a simple but universal plotline, and overwhelmingly beautiful wall-o-sound production. “Round & Round” rocks harder, with a punkish intensity, roaring riff-heavy guitars, and guttercrash drumbeats.

The best bet on Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, however, is the title track. Penned by producer Little Steven (Van Zandt), the song’s combination of ‘60s pop vulnerability and leather jacket tuffness is bolstered by delicious vocals and harmonies, a haunting melody, swells of genius keyboards, and a broken-hearted lyrical undercurrent that will have you reminiscing about your first love. If there was even a shred of justice in this cold, cold world then this song would be a mondo-huge radio hit, the album would sell multiple truckloads, and the Cocktail Slippers would be the toast of the town. (Wicked Cool Records, released March 21st, 2009)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine


Buy the CD from Amazon:
The Cocktail Slipper’s Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre

Monday, February 10, 2025

Archive Review: Disappear Fear's Deep Soul Diver & Live At The Bottom Line (1995)

Disappear Fear's Deep Soul Diver
I remember – it was a couple of years ago – I was digging through a crate of CDs that a local radio station I was affiliated with at the time was going to get rid of. I grabbed a dozen or so promising discs and raced home for an extended listening session. Many of those free discs ended up being reviewed in the early issues of this rag. One CD that I had picked out, to be truthful, entirely on the strength of the unknown band’s name – Disappear Fear – proved to be the best of the lot.

Subsequently, in the September 1993 issue of R.A.D!, this humble scribe wrote of Disappear Fear’s self-produced Live At The Bottom Line disc: “this incredibly talented duo move miles beyond the folk-influenced singer/songwriter vein in introducing songs that are as intense, personal and damn beautiful as any this critic as ever heard.” I continued to wax effusive about the duo of Cindy Frank and Sonia Rutstein: “songwriter Sonia’s Byronesque lyrics speak to the romantic hidden in every listener, masterfully describing the longings of the heart.” After quoting a few of Rutstein’s wonderful lyrics, I closed the review by saying “these songs present classic observations on love and relationships from a charismatic duo who, hopefully, have a lengthy and successful career in store for them.”

After listening to Philo/Rounder’s reissue of the album, with songs recorded in 1990 and 1991, as well as the previously unavailable track “Long Long Way To Go,” I stand by what I previously wrote and gladly add to my praise of Disappear Fear. They are an immensely talented pair, bringing to their material an intelligence and sensitivity that surpasses even the usual high standard for the folk / rock genre. Philo picked up the band a year or so ago, releasing an equally excellent new collection of tunes titled simply Disappear Fear. Just a few months ago the label reissued Live At The Bottom Line and the duo’s impressive 1989 debut album, Deep Soul Diver. Few of the songs from Deep Soul Diver are revisited on the live disc, allowing the material on this debut to stand on its own. The disc is an artistic triumph, the accumulation of years of songwriting and performing. Frank and Rutstein sound incredibly mature for a recorded debut, their beautiful harmonies and casual performances belying their tender ages.

I was lucky enough to see Disappear Fear play last summer at Nashville’s annual Summer Lights Festival, where I witnessed a phenomena I’ve seen only a few times during this critic’s existence. The duo drew an enormous crowd, exceptional, really, considering that they were one of a handful of out-of-town acts among the hundred or so scheduled performers on several outdoor stages. Quite a few members of the audience obviously had been following the band from town to town on their tour, and more than a few folks knew enough about the band and their material (only one album in print at this time, you must remember) to sing along with the pair’s electric performance. Disappear Fear rocked downtown Nashville that night, reaffirming what I had written almost a full year earlier: they definitely have a lengthy and considerable career ahead of them. (Philo/Rounder Records, reissued 1995)

Review originally published by R.A.D! (Review and Discussion of Rock ‘n’ Roll) zine

Friday, February 7, 2025

Archive Review: Rory Gallagher’s Notes From San Francisco (2011)

Rory Gallagher’s Notes From San Francisco
By late 1977, Irish blues-rock guitarist Rory Gallagher had delivered six studio albums in as many years, and had toured constantly during the interim. After completing a particularly grueling six-month tour that finished in Japan, Gallagher and band flew back to San Francisco to record a new album with producer Elliot Mazer (who helmed Big Brother & the Holding Company’s Cheap Thrills album with Janis Joplin).

After a couple months of intense and difficult recording, the guitarist deemed the final mixing process to be “too complicated” when it obviously wasn’t getting anywhere, and he put the entire album on the shelf, subsequently breaking up his band of five years in the process. In early 2011, Gallagher’s nephew Daniel, son of Rory’s brother and manager Donal Gallagher, rescued these unreleased recordings from the archives after 34 years and remixed the album that would have been released between 1976’s Calling Card and 1978’s Photo-Finish. Recorded with a four-piece band, the album’s nine songs are Gallagher originals, around half of which would be re-recorded in different form with a three-piece band for Photo-Finish.

Rory Gallagher’s Notes From San Francisco


The question on everybody’s mind, of course, is Notes From San Francisco worth the wait? Yes, I’d have to say that it was. While Gallagher may have had an inordinate amount of trouble trying to get the performances to sound like he wanted during the mixing process, Daniel Gallagher’s nuanced mix – performed with modern equipment, of course – brings out facets of the guitarist and band’s performances that the primitive late-1970s technology overlooked. The album-opening “Rue the Day,” for instance, offers up some tasty honky-tonk piano running like a river beneath Gallagher’s twangy leads and roaring vocals. Martin Fiero’s blasts of sax help round out the sound, which is revved-up boogie-rock evoking 1970s-era Rolling Stones.

Only hardcore fans of Gallagher’s bootleg albums have heard “B Girl,” but for everybody else, it’s a new song, and a good ‘un at that. With a sleazy guitar riff circling in and out of the mix, the band lays down a fat, funky rhythm that dances beneath Gallagher’s comparatively gruff, whiskey-soaked vocals. It’s this contrast, between the guitarist’s dark-hued vocals and the band’s bright instrumentation that makes the song truly shine. A long-time live favorite, “Mississippi Sheiks” would be re-recorded by Gallagher for Photo-Finish, but it’s performed here with a different arrangement. Gallagher’s stunning guitar intro and the band’s stammering rhythms are akin to the sort of blues-derived hard rock pursued by Savoy Brown or Status Quo. But what sets this performance apart from all the others is the addition of Joe O’Donnell’s lively electric violin, which provides the song with an otherworldly, soulful vibe.

Wheels Within Wheels


Rory Gallagher's Photo-Finish
Notes From San Francisco includes two different versions of the popular Gallagher song “Wheels Within Wheels,” the first being a gentle MOR radio ballad with touching vocals and Lou Martin’s rolling piano-play, while the second, alternate version is delivered at the same mid-tempo pace, but with a bluesier inflection in both the vocals and in Gallagher’s fretwork and with less emphasis on piano, sounding like a 1980s-era Eric Clapton ballad but with more heart and soul. Another track that would appear on Photo-Finish, “Brute Force & Ignorance,” lives up to its title with a muscular, bludgeoning performance with crashing drumbeats, brickhouse bass lines, and scorched-earth guitar. Fiero’s sax makes another appearance here, lending a bit of R&B feel behind Gallagher’s weeping, soaring guitar solo.
 
One of the lesser-known Photo-Finish tracks, “Fuel To the Fire” represents another outlier in Gallagher’s musical evolution. With sparse, but strong instrumentation behind his mournful vocals, Gallagher’s atypical fretwork finds him pursuing a less bluesy, more rock ‘n’ roll oriented sound with jazzy undertones and some odd, invigorating phrasing and extended solos that are simply beautiful. The album also includes two “bonus tracks,” including the previously-unreleased or re-recorded “Out On the Tiles,” a wildcat rocker with locomotive rhythms and a scattergun approach, Gallagher’s guitar spitting out notes with reckless abandon, razor-sharp tone accompanied by blistering speed and joyful chaos.

Live In San Francisco


Rory Gallagher's Calling Card
Notes From San Francisco includes a second live disc, culled from a December 1979 performance at The Old Waldorf. Fronting the power trio had recorded Photo Finish, Gallagher leads longtime bassist McAvoy and drummer Ted McKenna through a set that includes a mix of the old and new material. Crowd favorites like the raucous “Shinkicker” and “Off the Handle” are perfect showcases for Gallagher’s onstage charisma and dynamic guitarplay, while old chestnuts like the soulful “Tattoo’d Lady” and “Calling Card” are provided new vigor by Gallagher’s incendiary fretwork and the band’s muscular backing rhythms.  

A handful of tracks from the live portion of Notes From San Francisco stand out in particular from Gallagher’s previous (and frequent) live sets. One is a performance of “Bullfrog Blues,” from the guitarist’s early British blues-rock band Taste. Revving up the tempo, Gallagher and band crank out an unabashed boogie blast with machinegun drumbeats and flamethrower guitar licks. The concert rarity “I’m Leavin’“ is another up-tempo raver with brokeback drums, rapidfire vocals, and raging fretwork all delivered with punkish intensity, while a cover of the 1950s rock ‘n’ roll gem “Sea Cruise” is amped-up and ramped-up from the original but manages to capture the restless, rockin’ soul of the song nonetheless.     

The Reverend’s Bottom Line


Although collections such as Notes From San Francisco are typically aimed at a collector audience that eagerly grab up everything new or novel from a musician, in this instance this two-disc set serves as an excellent introduction to an underrated and too-often overlooked blues-rock talent. Gallagher’s guitar rages like an out-of-control wildfire throughout these studio tracks, and roars like a jet fighter on a bombing run in the live setting.

While hardcore Rory Gallagher fans will eat this stuff up, Notes From San Francisco is more than a mere musical curiosity. The album stands on its own as both a studio recording and a live document, and it would have been welcome had it been released in 1978 as planned. As such, its current release represents an important and impressive addition to the guitarist’s growing legacy. (Eagle Records, released May 17th, 2011)

Buy the album from Amazon: Rory Gallagher’s Notes From San Francisco

Monday, February 3, 2025

The Day The Music Died: Ritchie Valens & The Big Bopper Commemorated As Bobblehead Figures!

Ritchie Valens & Big Bopper bobbleheads
 

Sixty-six years ago today, February 3rd, 1959 was “The Day the Music Died” as rock ‘n’ roll legends Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson died in a tragic plane crash in a corn field northwest of Clear Lake, Iowa. All of the artists had performed in Clear Lake that night as part of their “Winter Dance Party” tour and were flying to Minnesota when bad weather took the plane down.  

To commemorate and celebrate the lives and careers of Valens and Richardson, the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum has announced its release of the first officially-licensed bobblehead figures of the late singers, as seen above. The figures are being produced by the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum along with C3 Entertainment, representatives for Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and the Winter Dance Party brands. The über-cool bobbleheads were unveiled last week at the 2025 Winter Dance Party, held annually at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake. Fun fact: C3 has been in business for 60+ years and was originally formed by comedy legends The Three Stooges as Comedy III Productions!

Ritchie Valens 1959 press photo
Ritchie Valens
Valens was born as Richard Valenzuela in 1941 in Los Angeles, his name later shorted to “Valens” by label owner and producer Bob Keane of the Hollywood-based Del-Fi Records, who signed the teenage prodigy to a deal. During Valens’ first session at Gold Star Studios in May 1958, backed by members of the “Wrecking Crew” session pros including Carol Kaye and Earl Palmer, he recorded his first single, the original song “Come On, Let’s Go” b/w the Leiber & Stoller song “Framed.” Rushed out on the market within days of its recording, the single was a modest hit that led to a quick follow-up single, “Donna” b/w “La Bamba.”

“Donna” peaked at #2 on the Billboard chart and would be Valens’ final success, selling better than a million copies to be certified Gold™ by the RIAA. The first Mexican-American rock star, Valens is considered a pioneer of Chicano rock, influencing artists like Los Lobos and Carlos Santana. Sadly, Valens was only 17 years old at the time of his death, but his legacy was ensured by the 1987 movie La Bamba, which starred actor Lou Diamond Phillips as Valens, with Los Lobos contributing music to the film. In August 2024, the filming of a new Valens biopic was announced, with Luis Valdez, the writer and director of the 1987 movie, as executive producer. Valens was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of fame, and the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame.   

Jiles Perry “J.P.” Richardson, Jr. was born in Sabine Pass, Texas in 1930 and grew up in Beaumont, Texas, playing high school football before going to Lamar College to study pre-law. He worked part-time as a deejay for KTRM radio in Beaumont, quitting school in 1949 to work full-time at the station. He was drafted into the Army in 1955 and, after a two-year service at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, returned to KRTM where he would take on “The Big Bopper” nickname before eventually becoming the station’s program director. He began his music biz career as a songwriter, striking gold fairly quickly when George Jones recorded his song “White Lightning” as his first chart-topping country hit. Jones enjoyed another hit with Richardson’s song “Treasure of Love.” Richardson also wrote “Running Bear” for his friend Johnny Preston, which hit #1 on the pop chart nearly a year after Richardson’s death, and his songs would be recorded by country performers Hank Snow and Sonny James.

The Big Bopper
The Big Bopper
Signed as an artist to Mercury Records (Jones’ label at the time) by promotion director Harold “Pappy” Daily, Richardson released his first single, the country tune “Beggar To A King,” under his own name but it didn’t even wave at the charts. Richardson recorded his song “Chantilly Lace” as The Big Bopper for Daily’s D Records label; the single was picked up by Mercury and released in June 1958, subsequently hitting #6 on the pop chart, where it spent 22 weeks in the ‘Top 40’ on its way to selling over a million copies. Richardson followed it up with the novelty hit “The Big Bopper’s Wedding.” After performing in Clear Lake, Richardson – who was suffering from the flu – convinced Buddy Holly’s Crickets’ bandmate (and future country music legend) Waylon Jennings to give him his seat on the ill-fated flight.     

In a press release announcing the figures, National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum co-founder and CEO Phil Sklar says “we’re excited to unveil the first bobbleheads celebrating music legends Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. Taken far too early, both musicians made lasting marks and the bobbleheads will be must-haves for music fans.” The bobbleheads display Valens and Richardson holding guitars in poses that duplicate iconic photos of the artists.

Where can you buy these future additions to your rock ‘n’ roll collection? The bobbleheads are individually numbered in a limited edition of 2,025 figures each and are available only through the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame & Museum online store [link]. The cost of each figure is $30, which is right around par for this kind of collectible, with shipping a flat rate of $8 per order; the figures are expected to ship in June. Tell ‘em that the Reverend sent ya!

Ritchie Valens & Big Bopper bobbleheads

 

Friday, January 31, 2025

Archive Review: Rory Gallagher’s The Beat Club Sessions (2010)

If not exactly a contemporary of British blues-rock guitarists like Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, Ireland’s Rory Gallagher came of age in the wake of trailblazers like the Yardbirds and Cream. From the time of Gallagher’s band Taste’s 1969 self-titled debut album, through an acclaimed solo career that began in 1971 and resulted in over a dozen albums until Gallagher’s tragic death in 1995, the guitarist earned a well-deserved reputation for powerful guitarplay; gruff, soulful vocals; and a skilled manipulation of blues and rock music that easily rivaled that of Clapton and Page as well as peers like Gary Moore and Mick Taylor.

Interest in Rory Gallagher and his music continues to grow some 15 years after his death and, luckily for us punters, there seems to be a deep well of archive material being brought up by bucket and chain and trickled into the marketplace on compact disc and DVD. Gallagher’s The Beat Club Sessions represents a new high in the guitarist’s growing catalog, a dozen white-hot performances that burn brighter than phosphorus, blasting through the eardrums to rattle around in the brain like a maddening sustain. Recorded during three of Gallagher’s frequent appearances on the German television program The Beat Club, the album (and accompanying DVD) features material culled from Gallagher’s 1971 debut and that year’s follow-up Deuce, as well as a couple of choice covers, like the guitarist’s signature romp through Junior Well’s “Messin’ With the Kid.”

Rory Gallagher’s The Beat Club Sessions


The Beat Club Sessions opens with the lively “Laundromat,” a scalding hot tater that jumps around like a lobster in a pot. Gallagher’s guitar playing here is positively stunning, flowing effortlessly from raw scraped rhythms to jazz-inflected solos, his gravel-throated vocals almost an afterthought in the face of the song’s massive groove. Gallagher’s “Sinnerboy,” from his album, is a horse of an entirely different color. The intro offers up some delicate guitar picking, Gallagher’s vocals complimented by shimmering cymbals before he cuts loose with a muscular, bluesy rhythm that leads into a taut solo that cuts like a razor. Contrasting with these scorchers is the long-time Gallagher favorite “I Don’t Know Where I’m Going,” an acoustic blues number with a little Delta mud in the grooves, Gallagher’s subdued guitar strum matched by his warbling harmonica work.

The serpentine slide-guitar that introduces “I Could’ve Had Religion,” from the album, opens the door to a smoky, down-n-dirty sin-and-salvation tale that sounds like Robert Johnson with an Irish lilt to his voice. The song stomps and stammers out of your speakers like a hungry beast, a change in fortunes from Johnson’s hellhounds as the song’s protagonist willingly chooses the dark side. Gallagher’s slide-guitar runs wild through the song like a jolt of electricity guaranteed to tickle the fancy of any blues-rock fanboy. “Used To Be” is another long-time live fave, a raucous houserocker a la Cream, Gallagher using the power-trio format to its fullest, the song bristling with electric guitar riffs and crashing rhythms.

Crest of A Wave


Rory Gallagher
The rollicking “In Your Town” shows just the slightest hint of Chicago blues in its deep rhythmic groove, Gallagher almost shouting his vox above the din, an aural assault partially created by his flamethrower fretwork. The song’s rapid pace is propelled by drummer Wilgar Campbell’s incessant percussive percussion and bassist Gerry McAvoy’s heavy bass-work. Again, Gallagher’s squealing guitarplay tortures the arrangement with a black cat moan and a spine-shaking intensity.

Gallagher’s “Crest of A Wave” is one of his signature tunes, a lyrically and musically epic song that offers ringing, circular guitar, strident vocals, a rock-solid rhythmic backbone, and a leather-tuff solo that soars like a bird of prey. Gallagher’s cover of Junior Wells’ “Messin’ With the Kid” may be absent the master’s powerful harp playing, but the guitarist claimed equal ownership of the song with soulful vocals and an inspired, fleet-fingered bit of guitarplay. McAvoy’s bass solo here is a thing of beauty, while Campbell’s drum solo adds a bit of bluster to the song’s braggadocio, but it’s Gallagher’s wailing solos that steal the spotlight.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line


Rory Gallagher fans have long known of the man’s immense talents as a guitarist and a performer, but he remains one of the best-kept secrets in blues-rock music. Gallagher arrived late to the party, perhaps, the British blues scene already moving on to harder-edged rock by the time that the guitarist made his debut. Still, as these early performances from the dawn of his career show, Gallagher had the skills, the heart, and the soul to deliver emotional, moving blues-rock music that connected with the listener.

That he never found a larger audience is an oversight that The Beat Club Sessions can help correct. These twelve powerful performances showcase a guitarist at beginning of a substantial career, full of vigor and brimming over with ideas, both musical and lyrical. That Gallagher’s long-time fans will grab up The Beat Club Sessions is no surprise, but the album would also make an intoxicating introduction to the man and his music for the newcomer. (Eagle Records, released September 14th, 2010)

Buy the album from Amazon: Rory Gallagher’s The Beat Club Sessions

Monday, January 27, 2025

The Reverend's Winter 2025 Playlist (The Continental Drifters, Old Town Crier, The Big Ol' Nasty Getdown, Tommy Castro & the Painkillers)

The Continental Driftes' White Noise & Lightning
It’s cold as a penguin’s patootie outside as I write this – a measly four degrees with a minus seven wind chill here in WNY – so it’s time to crank up the Victrola and spin some hot tunes to melt the ice from your eardrums and push away frostbite for another day. Here’s some of the Reverend’s picks for winter playlists, every one guaranteed to get rid of yer ‘winter blues’!

The Continental Drifters were easily a decade ahead of their time, or maybe a decade too late, depending on your perspective. Featuring a brace of skilled songwriters – Peter Holsapple (The dB’s), Susan Cowsill (The Cowsills), Vicki Peterson (The Bangles), and Mark Walton (Dream Syndicate) – and a slew of talented noisemakers, the Drifters were an ‘80s-era college rock dream band with the jangle to prove it. They released four albums over a decade (1993-2004), their final album actually recorded as their first, and they danced at the intersection of pop and rock at a time when musical culture was dominated by some of the ugliest and most brutal sounds one could capture on tape.

As shown by White Noise & Lightning: The Best of the Continental Drifters (Omnivore Recordings), music this intelligent, creative, and oftentimes beautiful is timeless, a magical talisman just waiting for an audience to find it. With this collection – and the band’s recent biography of the same name penned by Sean Kelly – the door to rediscovery by a younger generation is wide open. Pulling material from all four of the Drifters’ albums, and including a previously-unreleased live track in the form of the electrically-charged “Who We Are, Where We Live,” White Noise & Lightning offers up everything from the gorgeous pop ballad “Mixed Messages” to the hard-rocking “Don’t So What I Did,” as well as the band’s folkish ‘theme song’ “Drifters,” beautifully sung by Cowsill. Dig into the Continental Drifters, the best band you never heard! Grade: A+   BUY! [Omnivore] 

Old Town Crier's Motion Blur
Old Town Crier
(a/k/a Jim Lough) has received digital ink here before, notably for the 2023 LP A Night with Old Town Crier, which Lough used to raise money for The Pine Street Inn, a Boston-area non-profit fighting homelessness. The four-song EP Motion Blur (self-produced) was recorded in the winter of 2004, the tape promptly lost, and then rediscovered last year. Keeping with his usual ‘modus operandi’ Lough has released Motion Blur on Bandcamp, with half the proceeds going to the Plymouth COPE Center at bamsi.org, a pretty cool and worthwhile non-profit that is creating “equal opportunities for individuals with developmental disabilities and mental and behavioral health challenges.”

Motion Blur depicts the imaginative rocker in a different light, with a bit of twang in the grooves and a rockabilly heart. The short, sharp shock of “Back Door” swings on the hinges of a truly reckless guitar lick that eats at your brain like a politician’s promise while evincing a cowpunk aesthetic. The toothier “Rebecca” welds a standard honky-tonk dancefloor rhythm to a slinky Exile-era Stones soul groove with wiry, madcap fretwork and a joyous spirit while “Country Boy” is a hillbilly rave-up with clamorous instrumentation and revved-up vocals that go down like a Mason jar full of ‘shine (smooth, with a finish that kicks yer ass). Closer “Real Good Friend” injects a ‘60s-era garage-rock vibe into the mix, like Sky Saxon riding a mechanical bull at Muhlenbrink’s Saloon in West Nashville, with some mighty fine git pickin’ driving the vox. The EP is a delightfully lo-fi affair but nevertheless displays plenty of heart and soul with its performances. Grade: A   BUY! [Bandcamp]

The Big Ol' Nasty Getdown's RePurposE Purpose, Vo. 1
Any outfit with a name like The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown is certain to get the Reverend’s attention, and the band’s spicy debut, RepurposE Purpose Vol. 1 (Org Music), lives up to its billing. Masterminded by producer/bassist John Heintz, The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown has been bubbling under the public’s consciousness for better than a decade, but the seven-song RepurposE Purpose Vol. 1 EP (which delivers all of the energy and cheap thrills of a full-length LP!) should raise the band’s profile and deserves every dollar you throw out for a copy. Digging into a long-lost funk goldmine with a veritable ‘who’s who’ of musical talent, the EP features name players like Jack Irons (The Red Hot Chili Peppers), Angelo Moore & Norwood Fisher (Fishbone), Jimi Hazel (24-7 Spyz), Larry LaLonde (Primus), Leo Nocentelli (The Meters), and Ra Diaz (Korn), among many others. Of course, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got the swing, and superstar studio party times have been known to go awry before, but it’s all good with The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown.

Opener “All Together Now” is a solid musical statement, an energetic instrumental with jazzy horns blasting above a hardcore funk rhythm and embroidered by the legendary Nocentelli’s bluesy shards of jagged lead guitar. “Body Magic” offers up P-Funk’s Ronkat Spearman delivering his silky vox above a spry, space-age funk ensemble that mixes brass and percussion with a soul undercurrent to booty-shaking effect. The throwback vibe of the instrumental “420 Ocean Drive” displays echoes of prime ‘70s-era Funkadelic with P-Funk axeman Eric McFadden leading the charge with imaginative and powerful leads, yet still manages to explore new and exciting musical territories. Fishbone’s Moore takes the microphone for the low-slung, raunchy “Spirit Stain” with Jimi Hazel weaving some devastating guitar licks beneath one of the boldest, nastiest, and entertaining cosmic grooves to ever tickle your cerebellum.

The avant garde instrumental “Ten Hits” may be the most intriguing and fascinating cut on the EP; led by Primus guitar-wrangler Larry LaLonde and featuring Fishbone bassist Norwood Fisher and Mike Dillon (from Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade) on vibes and tabla, the performance definitely digs into exotic turf to deliver a gem of a lysergic fever dream. Instrumental versions of “Body Magic” and “Spirit Stain” are as engaging and electric as the vocal versions, but possible with more heft given the change in focus. Blessed by the almighty Godfather himself, George Clinton, The Big Ol’ Nasty Getdown is the real deal, RepurposE Purpose Vol. 1 a stone-cold killer with big funk energy and – most importantly – the undeniable sound of a bunch of musical brethren making a joyous noise just for kicks. Grade: A   BUY! [Bandcamp]     

Tommy Castro's Closer To the Bone
Tommy Castro
has been knocking around the blues world for 30+ years now, but has never gotten the mainstream recognition his status deserves. Since his 1995 studio debut Exception to the Rule (and with the Dynatones before that), Castro has been preserving, yet pushing blues music to new heights. He’s won a slew of ‘Blue Music Awards’ from The Blues Foundation, including the coveted ‘B.B. King Entertainer of the Year” award an unparalleled four times. He’s an electrifying performer, an underrated singer and guitarist, and yet he wouldn’t be picked out of a lineup if he stole a ham sandwich from Carnegie Deli.

It doesn’t matter, tho’, because what pop music ignores, blues fans heartily embrace and, as shown by Castro’s latest effort, Closer To the Bone (Alligator Records), the man still has a lot to say. As usual, Castro’s guitar playing in the grooves is sharp, clean, and concise, reminding of B.B. King but with a little toothier bite to his solos. Even after decades of shouting the blues, Castro’s vox remain strong, soulful, with a touch of grit. “One More Night” is a swinging, Texas-flavored blues romp a la Stevie Ray, but with less six-string pyro (but still some…) while “Keep Your Dog Inside,” a duet with the multi-talented Deanna Bogart, evinces Elvin Bishop’s sense of humor while still managing to sizzle like a steak on a hot grill (and name checks the jocular Bishop in the outro).

“Ain’t Worth the Heartache” rides an exotic backing rhythm and Billy Branch’s harmonica wizardry to nirvana while on “Freight Train (Let Me Ride),” Castro channels Johnny Winter with his wicked Resonator play. The old-school, West Coast jump blues of “Bloodshot Eyes” jumps right out of the speakers and grabs you by the ears and, really, all of Closer To the Bone is pretty much guaranteed to put a smile on the face of any blues fan. Castro is more of a traditionalist than, say, Joe Bonamassa or Walter Trout, but neither is he afraid to mix a little rock or jazz into his blues sound. Neither is he hesitant to call upon his influences (B.B. King, Albert Collins, Stax Records) when needed to make a point. As such, Closer To the Bone is both an amalgam of everything that has come before in the blues world with Castro still managing to put a contemporary spin and energy to the sound. Grade: A   BUY! [Alligator]

Friday, January 24, 2025

Hot Wax: Preacher Boy's Ghost Notes (2024)

Preacher Boy's Ghost Notes
I’ve written here previously about the musical charms of Preacher Boy (a/k/a Christopher Watkins), a blues poet of no little talent and a unique perspective that digs deep into the music’s historical roots and then recreates it with a fresh artistic vision that belies tradition in creating something vigorously new and interesting. Ghost Notes is the indie musician’s most ambitious and impressive achievement to date, released on both CD and double-vinyl with a hefty paperback tome also available with lyrics, song notes, and photos. It’s the music that counts, however, and Preacher Boy has never been more compelling or intriguing than he is on Ghost Notes.

Preacher Boy’s Ghost Notes


Wielding a weathered, whiskey-soaked voice that is equal parts Tom Waits and Howlin’ Wolf yet easily recognized as Preacher Boy, I picked up on the Band’s influence on “Up the River” right away (especially since the legendary Garth Hudson had just passed away and was on my mind). Sporting a strong rhythm but laid-back vibe, “Up the River” offers up hazy memories expressed with poetic charm. “New Red Cedar Blues” is a country-blues song at heart, but with the same strong Americana roots as anything the Band ever recorded, Watkins’ mournful vocals accompanied by a riveting guitar line. The hard-fought knowledge of “Two Birds” is delivered with serpentine guitar and a Delta blues ferocity, Watkins’ desperate vocals almost drowning beneath the waves of a hypnotic groove.

The Springsteen influenced “Don’t Know What To Think Anymore” offers some of Watkins’ most inspired lyrics and fretwork, obtusely political in the way that all music is a political statement, whether it be personal or universal. You can’t separate the artist from their culture, and “Dirty Little Secret” is a blues-rock dirge that explores the cause and effect of addiction, whether it be substance abuse or the abuses of power that draws so many like a moth to a flame. The title track is a beautifully fragile story of lonely desperation, social isolation, and the compulsion to create that drives nearly every artist, delivered pitch perfect with trembling vocals and a mournful, almost Baroque soundtrack.

Land of Milk and Honey


The brilliance of “Scene of the Crime” is shrouded in oblique social commentary fueled by anger and a guitar-driven blues-rock dynamic that highlights Watkins’ fierce vocals. When lines like “the song of myself, sung by a fool and performed by a mime/tuned to a bell with a crack in the back that is still made to chime/by an old bell-ringer, long past his prime/who is lookin’ for clues at the scene of the crime” are accompanied by crying harmonica notes, you have to sit up and take notice. Ditto for “See All the People,” which grieves as passionately as “Scene of the Crime” rages; pointedly anti-violence, it also addresses the internal suffering of the killers who commit atrocities against their fellow humans, an aspect of every mass shooting too dark and inconvenient to be of concern to a society that has creates these mutants.

As close as Preacher Boy gets to a ‘traditional’ folk song, “No Rivers To Cross” is nevertheless a minimalist joy, a sort of Southern Gothic tale whose sparse instrumentation still plays loud below whip smart lyrics like “god or devil, it doesn’t matter/you praise the former and race the latter” and “down by the river, where the moonlight’s shattered diamond paints the water white/is where the drunks come to hear the monks drum/I’ll take you there where all are welcome.” Watkins claims a Tom Petty influence for “Land of Milk and Honey,” but it you couldn’t prove it by me, except for perhaps his vocal phrasing, which mildly mimics “Refugee.” The song displays a ‘60s-styled garage-rock undercurrent that skews closer to Sky Saxon, with a sorrowful vocal delivery that perfectly showcases the lyrics. Ghost Notes closes with the beautiful, lilting “Light A Candle,” written for Watkins’ wife, the considered words offered with emotion and accompanied by filigree guitarwork that touches your soul.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line


Ghost Notes is the most personal and lyrically revealing work in Preacher Boy’s lengthy career (I first reviewed his Devil’s Buttermilk album in 2002 for All Music Guide), a major work by an Artist who has refused to compromise his musical vision. It’s his “Americana” album, haunted by influential ghosts like Levon Helm, Townes Van Zandt, Tom Petty, and Mac Rebennack (a/k/a Dr. John) as well as a few still corporate souls like Springsteen, Dylan, John Fogerty, and Neil Young while still managing to sound uniquely original and creatively electrifying.

Watkins poured his heart and soul into the creation of Ghost Notes, and it shows in the album’s craftsmanship and integrity; it’s well worth tracking down a copy if you’re a fan of any of the aforementioned influences. Whether you opt for the CD or the 2x vinyl version of Ghost Notes, I’d recommend grabbing a copy of Watkins’ Ghost Notes: Songs and Stories as well, the book providing further insight into the unjustly obscure but nevertheless fascinating talent that is Preacher Boy. Grade: A+

Buy the album via Bandcamp: Preacher Boy’s Ghost Notes



Monday, January 20, 2025

Archive Review: George Thorogood’s 2120 South Michigan Avenue (2011)

George Thorogood’s 2120 South Michigan Avenue
In 2009, George Thorogood and his long-time band the Destroyers put together The Dirty Dozen, an odd album that comprised of a handful of new recordings and never before heard material from the band’s archive. Among the new tracks that Thorogood recorded for the album was a cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s “Tail Dragger.” The song must have captured the imagination of somebody in the executive suites at Capitol Records, because they asked Thorogood for an entire album of Chess Records covers.

The project turned out to be one that was very close to the blues-rock guitarist’s heart. As a teen, Thorogood heard the Rolling Stones instrumental “2120 South Michigan Avenue,” named for the address of Chess Records in Chicago, and wrote the label asking for a catalog. The music that Thorogood would discover on Chess directly influenced his choice to get into music, and had shaded and shaped his career ever since. Naming his Chess Records tribute album 2120 South Michigan Avenue, Thorogood and band rip and roar through songs originally recorded by such renown artists as Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, and others.   

George Thorogood’s 2120 South Michigan Avenue


Thorogood’s “Going Back,” written with producer/musician Tom Hambridge, opens 2120 South Michigan Avenue with a bang. With a raunchy boogie-blues vibe and Texas-styled, Z.Z. Top guitar riffing, Thorogood sings “from 1956 to 1965, Mississippi Delta found a home on Chicago’s deep South Side.” From this point the lyrics pay homage to, and name check such Chess Records greats as Bo Diddley, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, and others, including Jake and Elwood blues, as Thorogood’s rhythm guitar paints wide swaths of color upon which guitarist Jim Suhler adds his precision leads.  

Chicago blues legend Buddy Guy, an invaluable Chess Records sideman who recorded a handful of sides for the label, lends his scorching six-string to the manic shuffle “Hi-Heel Sneakers,” a song Guy recorded for Chess in the 1950s. As the band builds a strong rhythmic backdrop, Guy yanks, spanks, and shreds his strings in a manner that Leonard Chess would most definitely not have approved as Thorogood delivers a fine, inspired vocal performance.  

Let It Rock


Any discussion of Chess Records can’t ignore the contributions to the label by songwriter, producer, and session bassist Willie Dixon. A keen wordsmith, Dixon wrote hits for a multitude of Chess label artists (and more than a few for artists on the rival Cobra Records label). Thorogood and his crew tackle a number of Dixon number, beginning with the jaunty “Seventh Son.” The Destroyers crank it up here, with a rowdy, reckless rhythm driving Thorogood’s livewire vocals and Suhler’s soaring fretwork. Slowing it down to a malevolent, dull ache for Dixon’s “Spoonful,” the band falls into a deep groove, the rhythm embellished by Suhler’s dark-hued solos. Thorogood’s vocals are deeper and properly menacing, although they fall short of the Wolf’s larger-than-life growl.

Chuck Berry’s “Let It Rock” is a bona fide rock ‘n’ roll standard, the song banged out by garage bands and arena rockers alike for better than five decades now. This is the kind of blues-influenced, meat-and-potatoes rock that Thorogood and the Destroyers cut their eye teeth on, so they hit a mean lick here with a teetering, chaotic performance that jumps from your speakers and grabs you by the ears. By contrast, Bo Diddley’s self-titled ode sounds downright exotic, with the infamous Diddley backbeat capturing the listener’s attention with its mesmerizing vibe. Again, Thorogood and the boys can do this kind of stuff in their sleep, and they create a truly joyous noise here, with shimmering guitars and dancing rhythms.

Willie Dixon’s Gone


The underrated J.B. Lenoir’s “Mama Talk To Your Daughter” is delivered as an up-tempo rocker with a shuffling rhythm and rapidfire vocals, Thorogood’s guitar rattling and buzzing like a downed power line as Suhler embroiders fiery solos throughout the ramshackle performance. Blues harp giant Charlie Musselwhite, who learned his craft at the feet of the Chess masters, brings his experience to bear on the Dixon-penned Little Walter hit “My Babe.” As Thorogood and the guys lay down a solid rhythmic backdrop, Musselwhite adds a few instrumental flourishes, jumping in for elegant solos that display his fluid mastery of the harmonica.   
 
Another Thorogood/Hambrigde original, “Willie Dixon’s Gone,” is an unabashed rocker with an autobiographical bent. Above a locomotive rhythm courtesy the Destroyers, assisted by Thorogood’s greasy slide-guitar, the singer remembers the good old days passed, deciding that the “the good times ain’t as good as they used to be, whiskey ain’t as strong, and the blues ain’t as blue since Willie Dixon’s gone.” If radio programmer had any ears, they’d put this one on the airwaves and make it a giant hit. Musselwhite sits in again for the sultry, Chicago-blues-by-way-of-London instrumental title track, layering his dancing harp notes above the guitars and Kevin McKendree’s rich B-3 organ riffs.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line


Thorogood’s 2120 South Michigan Avenue is the artist’s first full studio album since 2006’s acclaimed The Hard Stuff, and his best album since 1982’s Bad To The Bone first made him a star during the blues-rock boom of the 1980s. The two original songs here fit right in with the spirit and the energy of the Chess material, and Thorogood and the Destroyers tackle the cover songs with raw, gritty enthusiasm, resulting in inspired and loving performances that pay proper tribute to the artists that influenced the band members to get into music in the first place. Highly recommended for both Thorogood’s existing fans and newcomers that may want to know what the guitarist is all about. (Capitol/EMI Records, released July 12th, 2011)

Buy the album from Amazon: George Thorogood’s 2120 South Michigan Avenue

Friday, January 17, 2025

Book Review: Drew Daniel’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats (2007)

Just about any aging hipster or backwards-gazing youngster with an interest in ‘70s-era underground culture is familiar with the British band Throbbing Gristle, but few of ‘em have actually ever really heard the band. Part of the reason for this is that TG were, well, somewhat loud and noisy in the pursuit of their particular artistic vision. The progenitors of what would later become known as “industrial music,” the four muckrakers that made up Throbbing Gristle – Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Chris Carter, and Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson – spun the fledgling genre out of their genuine anger at English society, tempered with a sound that was pure aural terrorism.

Throbbing Gristle’s third album, 1979’s 20 Jazz Funk Greats, eschewed the band’s previous alchemical brew of clanky metallic factory noise, found vocals, tape loops, and aggressively distorted sound to go in an almost completely different creative direction. As explained by writer Drew Daniel in his 33 1/3 series book on the album, 20 Jazz Funk Greats was both a departure from the band’s standard modus operandi, as well as a grand artistic statement. Lyrically, the album strays … albeit not far … from TG’s poetic obsessions with death, mayhem, and the perverse, dancing coyly into the battleground of interpersonal relationships (including their own), adding their unsubtle social commentary on the era to the mix.

Daniel points out that 20 Jazz Funk Greats actually includes none, and plenty of both, the album representing TG’s unique tongue-in-cheek perspective on jazz music and funk, in addition to their normal industrial-strength Sturm und Drang. From the off-putting album cover, where the four members look like anything but the “wreckers of civilization” that they’d been referred to by the British tabloids, to the relatively accessible sounds created by the band for the album, 20 Jazz Funk Greats is admittedly the creative high point of Throbbing Gristle’s brief, but notorious career.

Unlike those aforementioned listeners, Daniel has delved deep into the album, and dissects it here, song-by-song, with acute insight, and with some thought in providing the context and meaning of each track. Daniel had access to all four band members for the book, garnering valuable information in his conversations with each, also drawing upon the band’s historical record as documented in print (much of it in the British press, some through the excellent RE/Search Industrial Culture book).

Although Daniel comes across as a fanboy one moment, and a dry academic the next, his commentary on the album fits well within the 33 1/3 series’ purview overall. Although Daniel readily admits that 20 Jazz Funk Greats is not widely considered a classic album, he treats it as such in his exploration of both the album, and the band’s lasting importance and influence. In the end, he convinces the reader that, perhaps, this little-heard work by an obscure band is nevertheless deserving of another spin on the turntable. (Continuum Books, published December 15th, 2007)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine

Buy the book from Amazon: Drew Daniel’s 20 Jazz Fun Greats
       

Monday, January 13, 2025

Archive Review: Living Colour’s Pride (1995)

Living Colour's Pride
It took a combination of factors to make Living Colour possible: several years of the Reagan administration’s attack on progress, a volatile indie rock scene that spawned important changes in the music industry, and the growth in success of rap music that brought elements of African-American culture to a receptive white mainstream. Into this atmosphere stepped one of the funkiest, baddest, hardest rocking and most technically adroit rock ‘n’ roll outfits to grace the genre (that just happened to be composed of four talented Black men). Living Colour’s debut, Vivid, was released in 1988 and instantly received almost universal critical acclaim. The album broke down barriers of race, musical style and fashion that had been long-standing in rock.

The band’s members brought varied backgrounds to the creation of Living Colour. Singer Corey Glover was an actor with little or no musical experience, possibly enabling him to develop a unique and individually powerful musical style. Drummer Will Calhoun was a Berklee School of Music grad, his jazz background serving to shore up the band’s complex and diverse stylistic experiments. Guitarist Vernon Reid, an alumni of Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society, came into the public eye as a player in Mick Jagger’s solo band. Together with bassist Muzz Skillings, Living Colour made Vivid an international success, the disc’s masterful blend of hard rock, blues, and jazz riffs winning them a loyal audience that cut across race lines.

Living Colour’s Pride


Living Colour
Successful tours and multi-platinum status was to follow as, over the course of three albums and an EP, Living Colour developed its unique musical voice and identity. The recent release of Pride showcases the incredible talent that is Living Colour. Much more than a mere greatest hits album, Pride serves quite well instead as a musical document of Living Colour’s first six or seven years. The hits are all here, of course, from the raging “Cult of Personality” or the confrontational “Funny Vibe” to the memorable “Open Letter To A Landlord” and the band’s “theme song,” “What’s Your Favorite Color?” Pride culls a lot of material from the band’s ground-breaking debut, with a handful of cuts thrown in from Time’s Up and only a couple from Stain and the Biscuits EP. A number of unreleased songs and a single release round out the disc.    

Of the previously unreleased cuts included on Pride, “Release the Pressure” particularly stands out. A wicked, no-compromise rocker, Corey Glover’s vocals are menacing, primal growls backed by some wonderfully chaotic guitar playing. “Sacred Ground” is a metallic thrasher run amok, echoed vocals laid on top of a frantic beat and Reid”s heaviest playing yet. A jazzy beat and muted guitar open “These Are Happy Times,” the focus on Glover’s soulful reading of the song’s lyrics. Bassist Doug Winbush, who replaced Skillings after Time’s Up, performs some understated but tasteful fretwork to underline the song’s social message. These three cuts show the band’s enormous musical diversity and skill at improvising upon a standard hard rock foundation.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line


A lot has been written of Vernon Reid’s six string prowess, every compliment quite justified by the man’s large talent. As evidenced by Pride, it is Reid’s guitar that lends the band the greatest part of its identity, filling each song with a creative energy and breathing life into an otherwise morose musical genre. After seeing and experiencing Reid perform live more than once, I’d personally place him among the legends of rock guitar, artists like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan who redefined styles and pushed the envelope. It is also shown by Pride, though, that it is a combination of talents, from Glover’s vocals and Calhoun”s rock-steady drumming along with the contributions of two skilled bassists that play along with Reid to make Living Colour great. The band is made up of four very talented men without which the accomplishments of Living Colour would not have been possible. Pride is a wonderful showcase for the band and what they can do musically. (Epic Records, 1995)

Review originally published by R.A.D! music zine

Buy the CD from Amazon: Living Colour’s Pride

Friday, January 10, 2025

Archive Review: "Dirtnap Across the Northwest" (2003)

Dirtnap Across the Northwest
Compilation discs are the best way for the budget-minded (read: broke) punk rawk consumer to familiarize themselves with a wide range of available muzak. Take, fer instance, Dirtnap Across the Northwest, an ultra-fine collection of tunes from a variety of rock ‘n’ roll types offered by Seattle’s Dirtnap Records at a reasonable (i.e. $10) price. This monster comp serves up a whopping 31 tasty tracks, each one previously unreleased and many actually worth your valuable time. As usual, some comp performances rise above the others, and it’s no different here. Among my personal faves are the Epoxies, whose “Join the Professionals” shows all the guts and fire of the Avengers a quarter of a century after the fact. The Stuck Ups’ “Missing You” is all unrelenting white noise/white heat while the Cripples sound like new wave techno-punx with their squealing synths and snotty vox.

I swear that Midnight Thunder Express are the New York Dolls reincarnated sans J. Thunders and with a lippier frontman than Buster. The Triggers also dance on the Avengers tip with “Song By Heart” and the Flip Tops deliver old-fashioned crash and bang punk rawk with unintelligible vocals and monster riffs. The Hollow Points rock like Stiff Little Fingers circa ’77, cranking out a nifty little anti-war ditty with balls. Lopez cuts a rug with “Cretin,” sounding like a higher-voltage, hardcore version of AC/DC with choogling guitars that will please punks and metalheads alike. The High Beams, the Cinch, the Spits – there’s something for every taste on Dirtnap Across The Northwest and not a single pop/punk poseur in sight. Dirtnap Records has become the Reverend’s new favorite indie label and it should be yours, too! (Dirtnap Records)

Review originally published by Jersey Beat music zine, 2003

Monday, January 6, 2025

Hot Wax: Blind Gary Davis's Harlem Street Singer (1960/2024)

Blind Gary Davis's Harlem Street Singer
Blind Gary Davis, perhaps better-known as Reverend Gary Davis (the name most of his recordings were issued under) was a talented musician with a unique instrumental flair. Born in South Carolina in 1896, Davis had been blind since he was an infant, sang in the church, and taught himself guitar, performing blues, gospel, ragtime, and traditional songs with a unique finger-picked style and distinctive vocal harmonies. Moving to Durham, North Carolina in his late 20s, Davis befriended and taught Blind Boy Fuller to play guitar, the two artists becoming leading figures in the often-overlooked Piedmont blues style of the 1920s and ‘30s. Davis became an ordained Baptist minister in his 30s, thereafter preferring to perform gospel music and releasing a number of singles for the American Record Corporation’s Perfect Records label, which also included artists like Cab Calloway, Gene Autry, and Cliff “Ukelele Ike” Edwards.

When his prospects dried up in North Carolina, Davis moved to New York City sometime in the late ‘40s, where he performed for years on the streets of Harlem before his early ‘60s “rediscovery” as a folk-blues artist. Davis only recorded a handful of albums for labels like Bluesville Records, Prestige Folklore, and Vanguard Records, and much of his work has been released posthumously since his death in 1972. Davis may be best remembered as a teacher, however, his guitar students including well-respected artists like David Bromberg, Steve Katz (The Blues Project), Dave Van Ronk, Rory Block, Bob Weir (The Grateful Dead), and Stefan Grossman. Reaching beyond his meager recorded output, Davis influenced artists like Bob Dylan, Jorma Kaukonen (Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna), John Sebastian (The Lovin’ Spoonful), and Keb’ Mo’, among many others.  

Blind Gary Davis’s Harlem Street Singer


Blind Gary Davis’s Harlem Street Singer inner label
Davis’s Harlem Street Singer, originally released in 1960 by Bluesville Records’ Prestige imprint and recently-reissued on vinyl as part of the new Bluesville’s ‘Acoustic Sounds’ series, features just the artist, his voice, and his impressive guitarplay. Davis performs his trademark blend of country blues and gospel, the album kicking off with the traditional “Samson and Delilah,” one of the guitarist’s signature songs, and one that has since been covered by artists like Bob Dylan, the Staple Singers, the Blasters, and Bruce Springsteen, among others. With a strong, clear voice and a lively strummed soundtrack, Davis knocks out the Biblical tale of betrayal with a religious fervor. The jubilant original “I Belong To the Band” is provided an even more forceful and fluid vocal performance fitting its nature. Davis’s “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” is a tour de force, his intricate fretwork underlining deeply emotional and personal lyrics delivered in a somber voice to great effect.     

The traditional gospel song “Twelve Gates To the City” offers a powerful and moving Davis vocal performance, his voice rising and falling with each verse, cascading guitar notes providing an elegant but solidly-constructed soundtrack. The slightly more up-tempo “Goin’ To Sit Down On the Banks of the River” is downright jaunty by comparison, Davis making a joyful noise in support of his faith. With vocals straining to meet the singer’s religious fervor, “Tryin’ To Get Home” is less a spiritual than a gospel hurricane, Davis’s almost shouted vox accompanied by complex guitar patterns. The lively and inspired guitar lines with which Davis imbues “Lo, I Be With You Always” have since been copped by dozens of later bluesmen for their songs, while the upbeat “Lord, I Feel Just Like Goin’ On” is anchored by more a more traditional country blues guitar structure, but with more than a few fanciful six-string flourishes dancing beneath Davis’s exuberant vocals.    

Harlem Street Singer lists folklorist Kenneth Goldstein as the album’s producer, and he indeed had an invaluable role working as the folk music director for labels like Folkways and Riverside Records. During the 1950s and ‘60s, Goldstein produced albums by country blues legends like Rev. Davis, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Leadbelly, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee that helped define blues music and early rock ‘n’ roll. But a word must be said on behalf of engineer Rudolph Van Gelder, who did an exemplary job in not just perfectly documenting Davis’s performance on tape, but in capturing its creative essence as well. A well-respected jazz engineer, Van Gelder recorded nearly every record released by Blue Note Records for over a decade, working with legends like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Joe Henderson, and Wayne Shorter, among many others. It was Van Gelder’s original vision and experience that allows the album’s modern remastering to sound as great as it does.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line


Davis’s imaginative fretwork can be found weaving intricate patterns and textures beneath every performance on Harlem Street Singer; it’s easy to miss, considering the strength and commitment of his vocals, but if you listen closely to the instrumentation, you’ll hear why the guitarist is held in such high esteem. Creatively blending the earthy Piedmont blues of his youth with the hymns that he heard in the church, Davis helped create what has since become reverently known as “holy blues” music. Davis’s style is antiquated even by tradition-bound blues music standards, but Harlem Street Singer successfully melded the sacred with the profane and, in doing so, influenced a generation of artists to follow.

Reverend Davis deserves a space in any blues fan’s collection, and Harlem Street Singer would be my first recommendation, followed by Davis’s long out-of-print New Blues and Gospel album. Like other Bluesville reissues of classic albums, Harlem Street Singer has been remastered from the original master tapes and pressed on thick, shiny 180-gram black vinyl and packaged in a hefty cardboard sleeve with glossy cover art and a protective cushioned inner sleeve. The album includes the original 1960 back cover liner notes and an obi strip with new notes by Bluesville’s Scott Billingham. It’s a wonderful package, and a solid introduction to the unparalleled six-string skills of Rev. Gary Davis. (Bluesville Records, released September 25th, 2024)

Buy the vinyl from Amazon: Blind Gary Reed’s Harlem Street Singer

Friday, January 3, 2025

Hot Wax: Jimmy Reed’s I’m Jimmy Reed (1958/2024)

Jimmy Reed’s I’m Jimmy Reed
Singer, songwriter, guitar, harmonica wizard…bluesman Jimmy Reed could seemingly do it all. He rode a string of Top Ten-charting R&B hit singles like “You Don’t Have To Go,” “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby,” “You Got Me Dizzy,” and “Honest I Do” to a modicum of fame during the 1950s. Reed carried his hit-making streak into the ‘60s with singles like “Close Together,” “Big Boss Man,” and “Bright Lights, Big City,” the latter two of which have since become blues standards covered by any contemporary artist worth their salt. But Reed’s singles began striking out more often than not when musical tastes changed towards folk-blues and he scored only one Top 40 charting song after 1962 until his death in 1975 at the too-young age of 50 years old.

Born in Dunleith, Mississippi in the heart of the Delta, Reed was taught guitar by his friend and fellow bluesman Eddie Taylor. After wandering across the state as a street performer, Reed immigrated to Chicago at the age of 18. He was drafted and served in World War II and, after being discharged in 1945, he began pursuing his blues career in Chicago clubs by night while working at the Armour meat-packing plant in nearby Gary, Indiana by day. Efforts to get a deal with R&B powerhouse Chess Records went nowhere, but Reed signed with Chicago’s Vee-Jay Records, where his labelmates included John Lee Hooker and Memphis Slim. Vee-Jay released roughly three-dozen Jimmy Reed 45s as well as a dozen albums before they went out-of-business in 1966, and it was with Vee-Jay that Reed found his greatest success.

Jimmy Reed’s I’m Jimmy Reed


Recently-reissued on vinyl by Craft Recordings’ Bluesville Records imprint, I’m Jimmy Reed was originally released in 1958 by Vee-Jay Records, the album a compilation of 12 songs previously released as singles between 1953 and 1958. The album’s original tracklist wasn’t in chronological order, so it opens with the slow-burning 1957 hit “Honest I Do” (#4 R&B), a slight shuffle complimented by Reed’s passionate vocals, fluid harmonica licks, and subtle fretwork. “Go On To School” was a single B-side but worthy of marquee billing, the song a much more aggressive shuffle closer in style to contemporary Chicago blues. Reed’s playful vocals are accompanied by fuller instrumentation, including his friend/mentor Eddie Taylor’s rhythm guitar.

Another B-side, 1955’s “Boogie In the Dark” is truth in advertising, an infectious instrumental booger-blues with a strutting, swaggering rhythm peppered by shots of harmonica and vibrating git play. Reed’s first big chart hit, 1956’s “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby” (#3 R&B) is a real swinger, with a jaunty shuffling rhythm and Reed’s laconic vocals singing of unrequited affection. Reed’s blistering harpwork adds to the overall timelessness of the performance. Side two of I’m Jimmy Reed kicks off with the artist’s second big chart hit of 1956, the jumpin’ “You Got Me Dizzy” (#3 R&B), whereas the singer’s romantic prospects have improved with a rollicking performance offering plenty of walking bass lines, harp riffs, and nuanced guitarplay.  

The 1956 single “Can’t Stand To See You Go” (#10 R&B) amps up Reed’s typical shuffle formula with soulful vocals, a strong lyrical presence, and elegant guitarwork propelled by Vernell Fournier’s rolling drumbeats. The exotic “Roll & Rhumba” blends Reed’s typical shuffle with an Afro-Cuban dance beat, creating an effective toe-tapping instrumental. One of the few Reed singles that failed to chart, “You’re Something Else” is nevertheless a pulse-quickening R&B romp. I’m Jimmy Reed closes with what was actually the singer’s first hit single, 1955’s “You Don’t Have To Go” (#5 R&B), which displays hints of John Lee-styled boogie beneath its shuffling soundtrack, Reed’s harmonica pushed to the front, and steady timekeeping by drummer Albert Nelson, who would soon thereafter change his name to King, take up the guitar, and carve out his own slice of blues history.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line


Jimmy Reed was a musician’s musician, and although he’s often overlooked in any discussion of great bluesmen in favor of legends like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, or Junior Wells, Reed’s silky style and elegant fretwork influenced artists as diverse as Elvis Presley, Hank Williams, the Rolling Stones, Eric Burdon & the Animals, the Yardbirds, and the Grateful Dead as well as contemporary bluesmen like Johnny Winter, Jimmie Vaughan, and Omar Kent Dykes. More than just an inspired debut, I’m Jimmy Reed is also a fine introduction to the artist’s immense charms, representing a more urbane sound than the Delta blues of Reed’s youth and pointing a way towards the future.

Like previous Bluesville reissues of classic albums in their Acoustic Sounds series, I’m Jimmy Reed was remastered from the original master tapes and pressed on thick, lustrous 180-gram black vinyl and packaged in a hefty cardboard sleeve with glossy cover art, the original back cover liner notes from 1958, and an obi strip with new notes by Bluesville’s Scott Billingham. It’s a beautiful package, and if you have any interest in blues music at all, this is the place to start! (Bluesville Records, released September 25th, 2024)

Buy the vinyl from Amazon: Jimmy Reed’s I’m Jimmy Reed