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...

Archive Review: The Pagans’ The Blue Album (2008)

Formed in the industrial wasteland that was late ‘70s Cleveland, Ohio, the Pagans were the result of the same disturbing musical zeitgeist that spawned the Dead Boys, Rocket From the Tombs, and Pere Ubu. Although their original run was short, but explosive – they first broke up in ‘79 – the Pagans have crawled back up out of the gutter more than once over the past 20 years, always fronted by growling vocalist Mike Hudson and buzzsaw guitarist Mike Metoff.

The Blue Album is the result of one of those reunions, the Pagans captured live in some dive in Madison, Wisconsin in ‘88. The sound ain’t half-bad, considering the crude recording, and the performance is the epitome of raw power: drunken, sloppy, and loud, with plenty o’ feedback, distortion, attitude, and crackling energy. More than a mere archival document, The Blue Album offers a balls-to-the-wall, first-gen punk-rock experience. (Smog Veil Records, released 2008)

Review originally published by Blurt magazine...

 

 

Archive Review: Descendents’ Cool To Be You (2004)

Foreshadowed by the excellent ‘Merican EP a few months ago, the first Descendents’ album in eight years certainly does not disappoint. Featuring the band’s trademark melodic punk, ramped up and amped up to keep up with singer Milo Aukerman’s madcap and slightly geeky vocals, Cool To Be You nevertheless offers up a more mature worldview than previous Descendents albums. Eight years is a lot of time in the life of a band and during the Descendents’ lengthy hiatus, the band’s sound has been co-opted by younger “punks” like Blink-182 and Sum 41. The four band members aren’t angry young punks anymore, but age and experience has added a vital edge to their anger…

Descendents’ Cool To Be You

Evidence “’Merican,” the centerpiece of Cool To Be You and as blistering a piece of social commentary as you’re likely to hear this election year. A brief and damning history of the United States, bassist Karl Alvarez’s lyrics hit your ears like an out-of-control chainsaw: “I come from the land of Ben Franklin, Twain and Poe and Walt Whitman/Otis Redding, Ellington, the country that I love” Milo sings approvingly. The darker side of America is not overlooked, tho’ – “But it’s the land of the slaves and the Klu Klux Klan/The Haymarket riot and the Great Depression/Joe McCarthy, Viet Nam” states the singer, concluding “it’s the sickest joke I know.” 

There are more such moments on Cool To Be You, real adult angst and anger and frustration forcing the question, what do teenagers have to be pissed off about anyway? It’s adulthood that sucks, whether it’s illustrated by the strange mating rituals of “Dog and Pony Show” or the extreme alienation of the title cut, the lyrical protagonist “counting scars in the land of the smiling knives.” Cool To Be You isn’t all pissed off lyrics and downer vibe, tho’, Milo standing up to be counted with the geek anthem “Mass Nerder.” A broadside leveled at the seemingly endless mass of hipper-than-thou posers and mall culture manufactured dissent, Milo proudly sings “I’ll read you under the table with my thick specs!” while “Maddie” addresses the realities of adulthood and relationships, concluding that “punk rock won’t pay the bills.”

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Descendents are blessed with not one but three above-average wordsmiths in Aukerman, Alvarez and drummer Bill Stevenson, while guitarist Stephen Egerton lets his playing talk for him, driving each song with perfectly-placed riffs and slashing leads that are typically overlooked by critics in awe of flashier axemen. Egerton is a damn fine guitarist, though, playing just what is needed and nothing more, each Descendents’ song a carefully crafted and deliberate mix of melody, energy, humor and anarchic spirit. In eight years, the band hasn’t lost a step – in fact, listening to Everything Sucks, the Descendents’ previous album (1996), it seems like the chemistry between the four is even better, each song meshing lyrics and instrumentation for total effect. Cool To Be You is punk rock as it was always meant to be – intelligent, entertaining and, at times, thought provoking. (Fat Wreck Chords, released 2004)

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

CD Review: CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986 (2026)

A ratty, dank, dark dive of a bar, CBGB in New York City has nevertheless earned its own chapter in rock ‘n’ roll history. A biker bar originally known as “Hilly’s On the Bowery,” owner Hilly Kristal changed the club’s name to CBGB + OMFUG (i.e. “Country, Bluegrass, Blues & Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandizers”) and began booking rock bands to try and attract beer-drinking crowds. Less than a year and a half later, the first and arguably finest generation of punk rock innovators debuted on the CBGB stage with Television, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, and the Talking Heads all establishing massive local followings before going on to various levels of worldwide fame and fortune.

With the ‘Pandora’s box’ of punk rock blown wide open by these most famous of CBGB bands, a plethora of sounds and styles would follow in their wake and onto the stage: the city’s infamous “no wave” bands like Sonic Youth, DNA, and Bush Tetras; post-punk outfits like Ritual Tension and Suicide; oddball funksters James Chance & the Distortions; rhythm & blues crooners Mink DeVille; power-pop bands like Sorrows, the dB’s, the Shirts, and the Paley Brothers and, finally, the hardcore punk regiments of Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Agnostic Front, and Murphy’s Law, among hundreds of other bands. Everybody who was anybody in the late 1970s and early ‘80s (The Damned, The Police, Elvis Costello, The Beastie Boys, et al) played CBGB.

The club eventually became a brand, spinning off a record store (CBGB Record Canteen) and combination art gallery/performance space (CB’s 314 Gallery) and continued to book cutting-edge bands until its closure in 2006. Two decades later, “CBGB” t-shirts remain ubiquitous among punk rock fans. The club inspired numerous live recordings and several books, the best of which – Roman Kozak’s highly-recommended 1988 tome This Ain’t No Disco – was recently reissued by Trouser Press Books, as well as lofty pop culture references (including an homage by The Simpsons TV show, the ‘Holy Grail’ of cultural gatekeeping) and even a tawdry 2013 biopic by filmmaker Randall Miller. 

CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986

Patti Smith

CBGB also spawned a number of various compilation albums, beginning with 1976’s Live At CBGB’s - The Home of Underground Rock, which was curated by Kristal; as well as the 1990 Japanese import CBGB “Off the Board” and 2001’s scant UK import 25 Years of CBGB’s: 1976-2001, both of which are totally and ignorantly unrepresentative of the club and the overall NYC punk scene in the 1970s and ‘80s. One of my least favorite of these comps is Ocho Records’ 2002 CD CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk. Featuring 18 tracks selected by British rock critic Johnny Chandler, the tracklist resembles an academic essay rather than a true documentary, featuring bands like the Velvet Underground, the Sonics, the 13th Floor Elevators, and the Seeds that never actually played at the club, but rather “influenced” those that did. Bollocks!

So, when I saw that archival experts Cherry Red Records in the U.K. was releasing a massive four-CD box set, CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986, I hoped for the best. I needn’t have worried, as the 91-track box set is every bit as detailed and entertaining as the label’s recent Motor City Is Burning: A Michigan Anthology 1965-1972 and Steppin’ Out: The Roots of Garage Rock 1963-1965 box sets. Sure, you’ll find the same ol’ familiar faces that defined the “CBGB’s sound” (insomuch as there was one…) that pop up on every single damn punk rock anthology, although some aren’t singing the same old song: The Ramones (“Beat On the Brat”), Patti Smith (“Free Money”), Television (“See No Evil”), the Heartbreakers (“Born To Lose”), the Dead Boys (“Ain’t Nothing To Do”), and Blondie (“Picture This”), et al. But these four CDs offer so much more!

The realities of booking several nights of live entertainment several nights at any club – even in New York City – are challenging, at best. Out of necessity, CBGB had to book a diverse lot of rock ‘n’ roll outlaws, and this perspective shows itself on CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack. Aside from the aforementioned bands that are most strongly identified with the club, you have such frequent performers as Mink DeVille (“A Train Lady”), Tuff Darts (“Fun City”), James Chance & the Contortions (a raucous live cover of “Jailhouse Rock”), Bad Brains (“Banned In D.C.”), The Cramps (“Garbage Man”), Wayne Country & the Electric Chairs (“Fuck Off”), Cherry Vanilla (“Hard As A Rock”), and Richard Hell & the Voidoids (“The Kid With the Replaceable Head”) all represented across the box’s four CDs. It’s the lesser-known and truly obscure artists that really tickle my fancy, however, and the box has those guys ‘n’ gals in spades.

Kenny Gordon & Pure Hell

The CBGB’s Sound

A lot of artists who brought their individual muse to the CBGB’s stage never got a chance to make a record, or only released a single seven-incher or underpromoted LP for posterity but, in my estimation, quite a few of these talents deserved a shot at the brass ring. The Magic Tramps (“S&M Leather Queen”) were one of these, as unique a band to hit the Bowery stage as you’d find back in the day, with a sound that welded punkish intensity to the endless musical possibilities of prog-rock with a blowtorch. Stuart’s Hammer’s name sounds like a prog band, but they’re were really a rowdy bunch of rockers with wiry guitarplay and a sly sense of humor. Sonny Vincent’s Testors are a late discovery of mine, and Sonny has recently released a great compilation LP of the band’s high-octane brand of punk as displayed here by the livewire “You Don’t Break My Heart.”

Helen Wheels

Largely because of Kenny Gordon’s (no relation) endless advocacy, Pure Hell are beginning to get their due as the “World’s Only Black Punk Rock Band,” and they deserve every accolade tossed their way. The band’s “I Feel Bad” is an unrelenting curb-stomp of powering guitars and crashing rhythms, and their 2006 Noise Addiction compilation is highly recommended for old-school punk fans. Milk ‘n’ Cookies is another outfit getting a chance to shine as collectors have picked up on their ahead-of-their-time glammy punk vibe as evidenced by the joyful “Not Enough Girls (In the World”). Helen Wheels (née Robbins) was a NYC scene mainstay during the ‘70s, and her “Roon To Rage” shows the heart of punk with raging vox, a mean melodic hook, slicing fretwork and thundering drumbeats. Shrapnel, fronted by Dave Wyndorf (who would later form stoner rock outfit Monster Magnet) and guitarist Daniel Rey (famed Ramones producer) deliver the goods with “Combat Love,” a rollicking power-pop tinged rocker heartily endorsed by no less an authority than Joey Ramone. 

The dB’s would go onto a modicum of fame as one of the ‘80s finest college rock outfits, and their “Black and White” offers a glimpse of where the band’s punk-influences pop/rock sound would land while New Jersey natives the Bongos’ “Telephoto Lens” strides across similar sonic power-pop turf but with a quirkier adventuresome style. The Raybeats’ instrumental “Tight Turn” mixed surf-rock with Memphis soul (think Booker T. and the M.G.’s) for an entirely unique vibe while the Beastie Boys’ “Egg Raid On Mojo” is their pre-rap hardcore mosh classic. Singer/songwriter Jesse Malin is better known these days for his lyrical rock ‘n’ roll fare but his hardcore band Heart Attack’s “English Cunts” is more closely aligned with British bands like Crass or Discharge than with Springsteen. 

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

With four CDs comprised of over five hours of music, I’ve only scratched the surface of the CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986 box’s depths. There’s still plenty of cool, and sometimes great music here from unmentioned bands like Sonic Youth, Minor Threat, the Dictators, Talking Heads (a rare live take of “A Clean Break”), Genya Ravan (with Lou Reed), the Paley Brothers, Non Hendryx, the Laughing Dogs, Material, Richard Lloyd, Sorrows, Reagan Youth, and James Blood Ulmer that roars out of your speakers. Offering a wealth of largely out-of-the-mainstream music and detailed track-by-track liner notes, CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack is the only compilation of the legendary rock scene that you’ll ever need to buy. (Cherry Red Records, released January 30th, 2026)

Buy the CD box set from Amazon: CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986

Archive Review: Tech N9ne’s Anghellic (2004)

One of the most underrated and unique talents on the underground rap scene, Tech N9ne’s rhymes skew closer to the horror-movie landscapes of Detroit’s Esham than to those of any faux-gangsta that you’ll see on MTV. First, the Kansas City native’s original patois is a mix of rapid-fire, dancehall-influenced reggae toasting and monstrous, death metal style growled vocals. N9ne’s material is extremely cinematic in nature; every song that flows across N9ne’s tape reel feels larger-than-life and immediate. N9ne’s music is grand in scope and ambitious in execution, his lyricism brilliant and imaginative. Yet, Tech N9ne remains virtually unknown outside of Midwestern rap aficionados.

Tech N9ne’s Anghellic

Anghellic was originally released in 2001 by a regional label in partnership with Interscope, but dropped out of sight quickly and went out-of-print. N9ne has provided the album with another chance, reissuing this crucial part of his catalog on his own Strange Music label. A concept album, of sorts, Anghellic at its core illustrates the struggle between the secular pleasures of the flesh and the church’s promises of the afterlife. Drugs, money, sex, sin and salvation are all addressed with these tracks. 

When N9ne ventures into traditional “gangsta” territory, as he does with “Real Killer,” the results are chilling, his stories blazing with street violence and sudden death. Other N9ne rhymes are equally powerful, whether spitting the life-is-purgatory lyrics of the haunting “Suicide Letters” or outlining the temptations and tragedies of fame with “This Ring.” N9ne enjoys a bit of self-mythologizing with “It’s Alive” while the operatic “Tormented” is, well…just plain weird. The music on Anghellic is lush and complex, less beat-driven than most modern hip-hop, sort of a cross between improvisational jazz, a movie soundtrack and hard-edged heavy metal.    

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

No doubt, Tech N9ne has talent and creativity to spare. As shown by this reissue of Anghellic and the more recent Absolute Power, N9ne possesses a unique vision unclouded by trends or fashion or celebrity. This isn’t Jay-Z or P Diddy playing the tabloids and throwing soundbites at TV cameras. Tech N9ne is the sound of the street, an artist who rocks to the beat of a different drummer. (Strange Music, reissued 2004)

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