Archive Review: R.L. Burnside’s Burnside On Burnside (2001)

Burnside On Burnside, recorded live at the Crystal Ballroom on, well, Burnside Street in Portland, Oregon, showcases a return to an earthier sound for Mississippi Hill Country bluesman R.L. Burnside. With a backing band that includes his twenty-two year old grandson Cedric and his longtime sidekick (and stepson), guitarist Kenny Brown, the 74-year old musician delivers a red-hot set of classic raw blues. 

Burnside’s bent-note style of guitar playing, inspired by mentor Mississippi Fred McDowell, is a classic example of traditional Mississippi Hill Country blues. When matched with Brown’s looping bottleneck slidework, and the younger Burnside’s steady rhythms, the guitar creates an almost hypnotic tapestry upon which the bluesman embroiders his powerful vocals. At home while on any stage, Burnside tells jokes, wanders across various musical pathways, and generally plays what he wants to play.

This is no slick Chicago-styled blues, or the work of some studio-bred Texas guitarslinger, nosirree - this is primal, no-frills, rockin-the-Casbah, honest-to-god jukejoint BLOOZE, delivered straight up, with no chaser. A gem among blues albums, Burnside On Burnside captures the music’s threatening ambiance and fiery essence like no other live album these ears have ever heard. (Fat Possum Records, released 2001)

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

Also on That Devil Music: R.L. Burnside’s I Wish I Was In Heaven Sitting Down CD review

Archive Review: Ian Siegal & the Mississippi Mudbloods’ Candy Store Kid (2012)

British blues-rock veteran Ian Siegal has spent better than two decades pursuing his own unique vision of the blues, leaning heavily towards the rootsier side of the Mississippi-bred sounds of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. Equally enamored of the raucous North Mississippi Hill Country style of bluesmen Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, Siegal mixed up all these disparate influences over the course of five albums to create a heady blues-brew that earned him induction into the British Blues Hall of Fame. 

In 2011, Ian Siegal traveled to Coldwater, Mississippi to record with Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars at his Zebra Ranch studio. The resulting album, the Dickinson-produced The Skinny, was credited to Siegal and the Youngest Sons and included contributions from talents like guitarists Robert Kimbrough and Alvin Youngblood Hart and bassist Garry Burnside, among other familiar names. The album gained Siegal a newfound U.S. audience that had long-eluded him, as well as his first Blues Music Award nomination. Figuring that they could capture lightning in the bottle for a second time, Siegal returned to Mississippi to record Candy Store Kid, Dickinson again behind the board and Siegal’s backing band, the “Mississippi Mudbloods,” including Burnside and Hart as well as guitarist Luther Dickinson and other friends.  

Ian Siegal & the Mississippi Mudbloods’ Candy Store Kid

Although the bulk of Candy Store Kid is made up of Siegal originals, he opens the album with the delightful “Bayou Country,” an obscure but often-covered tune by former Elvis Presley bassist Duke Bardwell. A blue-eyed soul number with swamp-rock undertones, the song’s 1970s-era influence is dizzying, offering up delicious backing harmonies, Luther Dickinson’s hot git licks, Siegal’s period-perfect vocals, and an overall Southern rock vibe that reminds of Don Nix or Travis Wammack. Siegal travels a bit further south for the ramshackle blues-rock of “Loose Cannon,” the song’s greasy construct fueled by Hart’s knowing slingshot slide-guitar and Cody Dickinson’s muddy rhythms, the band creating a down ‘n’ dirty juke-joint blues with an infectious chorus and big-beat sound.

Siegal and the Mudbloods go with a country-funk sound for “I Am the Train,” a driving rhythm pounded out by Garry Burnside’s nimble bass lines and Dickinson’s lively drumbeats rumbling furiously as Hart’s electrifying fretwork slithers beneath Siegal’s lively but nuanced vocals. Lyrically, Siegal applies a metaphysical bent to a metaphorical tale as the slightly-twangy, blues-inflected music click-clacks in the background like the steel wheels of a runaway locomotive. A cover of friend Steve “Lightnin” Malcolm’s “So Much Trouble” is delivered with the subtlety of a drunken rhino bum-rushing a china shop but, to be honest, the song was pretty much written that way by the Two Man Wrecking Crew member. Luther Dickinson’s razor-edged fretting of the sitar (an unusual blues instrument, to be sure) helps create the song’s malevolent atmosphere. Siegal’s vocals are often lost beneath the claustrophobic instrumental soundtrack, with only the three-voice female gospel-styled backing harmonies bringing any sort of sunlight to the performance.   

Strong Woman

The Ian Siegal and Luther Dickinson-penned “Kingfish” is an inspired cross between Howlin’ Wolf and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Although Siegal adds a few spirited verses, the emphasis here is on spotlighting his ongoing mastery of the Hill Country six-string drone, resulting in an electric and entirely satisfying performance. The crew gets stone cold funky for a cover of the Little Richard obscurity “Green Power,” Hart adding his vocals alongside Siegal’s to great effect as Luther’s guitar shades some of the corners with candy-flake texture, but it’s definitely the rhythm section here of Hart (on the fat strings) and Cody Dickinson that fuels this funk-fest, the two providing a deep, wide groove that you could get lost in for years.    

Garry Burnside steps up with his hard-rocking original “Strong Woman,” his soulful vocals melding with Siegal’s gruffer voice for a simply explosive performance. The song displays a nimble rhythmic groove, peppered as it is by Burnside’s Hendrix-influenced guitar licks, supported by Luther Dickinson’s heavy bass lines. The gentler “Rodeo” offers a sharp contrast, the lyrically-introspective romantic ode offering up some of the most brilliant imagery Siegal has penned to date, his melancholy vocals providing a bittersweet emotional edge to the performance as a lush miasma of swirling instrumentation – led by Hart’s shimmering fretwork – blooms like a wildfire behind his voice. The deep-fried funk of “Hard Pressed (what da fuzz?)” closes out Candy Store Kid, Luther Dickinson’s buzzing fretwork slipping ‘n’ sliding beneath Siegal’s vocal gymnastics on a spry lil’ sucker that falls hard on the Southern rock side of the blues-rock equation.   

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Ian Siegal has always been an above-average talent with a unique eye for the blues, but with Candy Store Kid and his previous album The Skinny, he seems to have discovered a new muse. By traveling to Mississippi and recording with members of the storied Dickinson and Burnside families (as well as the equally-talented Alvin Youngblood Hart), Siegal has created some of the most vital and entertaining music of his lengthy career. Going for more of a Memphis soul heartbeat than its Delta-dirty predecessor, Candy Store Kid is a career milestone and a heck of a lot of fun. (Nugene Records, released October 15, 2012)

Archive Review: The Nighthawks’ 444 (2013)

Veteran roots ‘n’ blues legends the Nighthawks follow up their 2012 release Damn Good Time with another strong entry in a catalog that’s been 40 years in the making and littered with dozens of great albums. As shown by opening track “Walk That Walk,” the recipe the band used in baking up 444 doesn’t vary much from previous albums – a dash of rockabilly, a teaspoon of twang, and ounces and ounces of pure blues flavoring. The song swings lively, with plenty o’ founding frontman Mark Wenner’s playful harp notes, a dancing groove courtesy of rhythm section Johnny Castle (bass) and Mark Stutso (drums) and scraps of Paul Bell’s electric fretwork.

There’s more to like on 444 than the infectious opening track, though. “Livin’ the Blues,” for instance, displays a brash Chicago style, the arrangement held down by a bold walking rhythm and Wenner’s icy, Little Walter influenced harpwork. The ostensible title track, “444 A.M.,” offers up a cool cats 1950s greaser vibe with Bell’s James Burton-styled chicken-pickin’ and Wenner’s sizzling harp. “Honky Tonk Queen” is the sort of engaging twangfest one used to hear in Nashville’s Printer’s Alley back in the 1960s while “Nothin’ But the Blues” is a smoldering juke-joint romp with Wenner’s gritty vocals, blasts of mournful harp, and subtle guitarplay. 

The band goes deep into the Delta with its cover of Muddy Waters’ “Louisiana Blues,” Wenner growling out the vocals above a lusty harp line, the band’s low-key accompaniment covering the song like kudzu. Like much of the Nighthawks’ underrated back catalog, 444 is authentic American music writ large, delivered the real goods with plenty of heart and soul. Grade: B+ (EllerSoul Records, released June 17th, 2014)

Archive Review: Brownie McGhee’s The Complete Brownie McGhee (1994)

That Brownie McGhee’s career should span several decades really comes as no surprise. The energetic and charismatic bluesman has managed to wear many hats during his lengthy musical life, appealing to several disparate audiences throughout the years without ever changing his basic style or direction.

Born in Tennessee in 1915 and raised in a musical family, a crippling childhood bout with polio kept McGhee housebound, and thus able to hone his musical skills. He was already in his 20s when he graduated from high school, a short time after which an operation provided the young artist with near total mobility. He began his musical career as a traveling bluesman, playing towns across Tennessee, West Virginia, and Virginia. He made his way to North Carolina, where he was discovered by J.B. Long, manager for the popular blues artist “Blind Boy” Fuller.

Collecting the initial sides recorded by McGhee for OKeh/Columbia during 1940 and 1941, The Complete Brownie McGhee showcases a talented artist developing his style from record to record. McGhee seems to have enjoyed a fair degree of commercial success with several songs, including “Me and My Dog Blues” and “Picking My Tomatoes,” but a number of the 47 recordings presented on The Complete Brownie McGhee are previously-unreleased sides.

His fluid vocals are accompanied by his own guitar, the harmonica playing of old friend Jordan Webb, and maybe a washboard player, offering up a healthy dose of traditional southern blues, mixing the best of that musical history with strains of gospel and hillbilly music in the creation of a style and performance that remains unique to this day. (Sony Legacy Recordings, released 1994)

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, July 1994

Archive Review: Blind Willie McTell’s The Definitive Blind Willie McTell (1994)

This two disc set provides a wonderful overview of the life of blues legend Blind Willie McTell, literally collecting nearly every side he ever recorded (only a handful of songs that couldn’t be found in any form were omitted). A pioneer of 12-string guitar playing, McTell’s unspectacular commercial career would prove to be quite influential nonetheless.

Born at the turn of the century in Georgia as Willie Samuel McTier (the origin of the McTell spelling is unclear), he picked up on music at an early age, evidently discarding it while attending several schools for the blind, only to pick it up again sometime in the 1920s. Throughout his career, McTell traveled constantly, performing for both white and black audiences, earning a reputation by word of mouth. If there was a crowd, whether in a club or on the street, McTell would play for them.

Lawrence Cohn, producer of The Definitive Blind Willie McTell, has done an impressive job of collecting the various widespread recordings of McTell. He had recorded sessions for a number of labels during the 1920s and ‘30s, often under a pseudonym. Many times, only a few hundred copies of a disc were pressed and distributed. McTell’s thin, trebly voice, with its Southern twang, and his distinctive guitar style were undeniably his own, however, under whatever name he chose to record under. 

The Definitive Blind Willie McTell offers them all, 41 songs total, including his
best-known composition, “Statesboro Blues.” McTell incorporated a myriad of influences into his style, from talking blues to ragtime. The collection offers fascinating look at an artist who built a legend entirely on the strength of his talents and his music. (Sony Legacy Recordings, released 1994)

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, July 1994

Archive Review: James Blood Ulmer’s Blues Preacher (1994)

A veteran of over two decades in the business of music, James Blood Ulmer sums it up best in the liner notes to Blues Preacher, the latest milestone in an already not insignificant musical career. “See, we have rappers and we have R&B, we have blues singers, and jazz singers and classical singers. But what I call this is ‘blues preaching.’ This isn’t actually singing, it’s preaching. It’s like putting music to a Baptist minister’s sermon....”

To be perfectly honest, Blues Preacher is a mix of old-time religious fervor, classic jazz improvisation, traditional blues riffs, and soulful rhythm and blues. Above it all, though, there’s a sort of prophetic musical interplay that takes the best of all the aforementioned styles and takes it into a futuristic musical landscape. Ulmer has assembled a strong, diverse band for Blues Preacher: the rhythm section of bassist Mark E. Peterson and drummer Aubrey Dayle providing a funky undercurrent to the material while Ulmer’s raw guitar work is matched lick for lick by Ronnie Drayton’s razor-sharp six-string finesse. 

This tense contradiction of styles works to the album’s advantage, breathing life and energy into cuts like “Justice For Us All,” “Jazz Is The Teacher” and “Angel.” If you find yourself bored to tears with the Hot Hundred or formulaic FM radio, plug into Blues Preacher for a taste of something at once old and new, different and familiar. (DIW/Columbia Records, released 1994)

Review originally published by R.A.D! zine, July 1994

Also on that Devil Music: James Blood Ulmer’s Birthright CD review 

CD Review: Freddie King’s Feeling Alright: The Complete 1975 Nancy Pulsations Concert (2026)

It’s heartening to know that, even at this late date in the growing shadow of the 20th century, there is still some amazing music being discovered in some vault or another. Last year we got an amazing, unknown John Lee Hooker album in The Standard School Broadcast Recordings and in 2026, so far, we’ve seen some fine live Humble Pie sides and a never-released Wild Tchoupitoulas set live in New Orleans. Now comes along Freddie King’s Feeling Alright, a previously-unreleased album documenting the legendary bluesman performing before 50,000 fans at France’s Nancy Jazz Pulsations Festival on October 10th, 1975. Released on vinyl as a three-LP set for this year’s Record Store Day event, it’s also available as a two-CD set for those of us with more discriminating budgets.

Freddie King’s Feeling Alright: The Complete 1975 Nancy Pulsations Concert

King wasn’t at his prime in 1975, but he wasn’t far from it even with his death tragically looming in the year to follow. The guitarist had released his sixth album of the ‘70s, Larger Than Life, which was a studio/stage hybrid with tracks recorded live in April of that year at the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin TX and in the studio in Hollywood with producer Mike Vernon. King embarked on a lengthy tour in support of the LP, barrel housing his livewire sound around the globe. 

King is backed on Feeling Alright by a solid band that included talents like second guitarist Ed Lively, bassist Benny Turner, and pianist Lewis Stephens as well as keyboardist Alvin Hemphill and drummer Calep Emphrey. Together, they make a joyous noise, the band members knowing when to play and when to stay and when allow the maestro to perform his six-string wizardry. They run through sixteen songs which represent a little old, a little new, and a whole lotta blues.

Have You Ever Loved A Woman

The set opens with King’s take on the Billy Myles’ song “Have You Ever Loved A Woman?,” the 1960 single expanded upon with King’s elegant, lengthy instrumental intro (nearly four minutes of guitar blues nirvana!) before he introduces the band (accompanied by individual solos, as was the style at the time…). King jumps back on the fretboard for a few minutes of bliss before introducing himself; it’s roughly ten minutes before he gets to the actual singing part. His emotional vocals make it well worth the wait, however, King delivering the lyrics as a heartbroken torch song punctuated by lonely guitar notes against a somber instrumental backdrop. It’s a stunning performance, King’s dynamic six-string work providing the song with gravitas and soul.

Although the opening track takes up nearly one-third of the first disc, what follows is equally as fiery and entertaining. “Whole Lot of Lovin’” is a booger-rock romp with a swinging rhythm and shards of brittle fretwork falling like rain on the chiming keyboards. The “Hey Baby”/“Mojo Boogie” medley rocks and rolls like Saturday night at the club while King’s reading of the 1953 Guitar Slim R&B hit “The Things I Used To Do” is precious, slowing the tempo down to a smoldering temperature while King belts out the lyrics. Definitely more up-tempo than its predecessor, a rowdy cover of Junior Well’s “Messin’ With the Kid” enlists full band participation and offers up one of King’s best vocal performances. 

Goin’ Down

The Don Nix blues standard “Goin’ Down” (recorded by the guitarist for his 1971 Getting Ready album) becomes putty in King’s, a raucous, rockin’, hell-raisin’ performance that knocks all of the contenders and pretenders out of the box. Contrast it with King’s masterful rendition of T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday Blues,” providing the song with a sober, nuanced performance. The second disc of Feeling Alright is comprised largely of inspired and wired blues covers, King tearing through songs like Robert Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago” and B.B. King’s “Sweet Little Angel” with reckless abandon. The disc’s opening medley incorporates King’s classic 1961 single “Sen-Sa-Shun” with John Lee Hooker’s “Boogie Chillun” and “Magic” Sam Maghett’s “Lookin’ Good,” creating an electrifying nine-minute-plus instrumental that blasts through your speakers like a lightning-bolt.

Muddy Waters’ signature tune, “Got My Mojo Working,” is tailor-made for King’s talents, his fluid guitar lines driving the band’s spry rhythms in creating a foot-stomping performance certain to get people out of their seats. Johnson’s aforementioned “Sweet Home Chicago” is equally audacious, slowed down to a mid-tempo barn-burner with plenty of piano and swinging bass lines to accompany King’s razor-sharp guitar solos. “The Danger Zone,” written by R&B great Percy Mayfield for Ray Charles, is a departure, a blistering ballad that King wrings dry of pathos. British rocker Dave Mason’s Traffic-era classic “Feelin’ Alright” is the album’s title track, King retaining the Mason’s hooky chorus but affording the overall song lively a funk-rock arrangement propelled by his scrappy guitarwork and Alvin Hemphill’s raving keyboard runs.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Feeling Alright: The Complete 1975 Nancy Pulsations Concert is provided lengthy liner notes by blues historian and Chicago native son Cary Baker (author of the excellent book Down On the Corner: Adventures In Busking & Street Music) that includes reflections from King’s daughter Wanda and bandmember Lewis Stephens. The set also includes a lengthy interview with Wanda King, who shares great memories of her dad. As there’s little of King’s live performance prowess available (a few tracks from Larger Than Life, a couple of bootlegs CDs, including Ebbets Field Denver ’74), Feeling Alright is a blues guitar showcase, an entertaining and provocative performance that cements Freddie’s status as one of the “Three Kings” of the blues alongside his contemporaries B.B. and Albert. (Elemental Music Records, released March 27th, 2026)

Buy the CD from Amazon: Freddie King’s Feeling Alright

Also on That Devil Music: Freddie King’s The Complete Federal Singles CD review

Archive Review: Bryan Lee's Play One For Me (2013)

For better than two decades, veteran New Orleans bluesman Bryan Lee has recorded for Canada's Justin Time Records, forging a quiet reputation a soulful vocalist, skilled songwriter, and vastly underrated guitarist. Beloved by fellow string-benders (just ask Kenny Wayne Shepherd, among others), that fact that Lee hasn't broken through to a larger blues audience is one of the great oversights of our time. With Play One For Me, the guitarist's Severn Records debut, Lee has a puncher's chance with the larger label at reaching the audience his talent deserves. 

It's no surprise that, in his adopted hometown, the blind bluesman is a musical institution on par with the Neville family, Dr. John, or the great Allen Toussaint. Play One For Me backs up his reputation with a phenomenal mix of Lee-penned originals and choice cover tunes that all showcase his hearty vocals and elegant guitarplay. Fronting a band that includes Fabulous Thunderbirds frontman Kim Wilson on harp and rhythm guitarist Johnny Moeller holding down the back end, Lee bites into Freddie King's "It's Too Bad (Things Are Going So Tough)" like a hungry man at a buffet, widely choosing to jazz up the original's already classy guitar line with a muted sort of grace as Kevin Anker's keys dance in the background. Howlin' Wolf's classic Willie Dixon-penned "Evil Is Going On" is given a full-bore Bourbon Street treatment with a brassy arrangement, a big beat, raging piano-play, and Lee's downright nasty guitar licks.  

Lee's original material is equally entertaining, the guitarist's "Poison" channeling a 1920s-era Delta-bred malevolence with its studio-altered vocals, ambling rhythms, and delightfully greasy fretwork. "Let Me Love You Tonight" rides an entirely different (soul) train, sounding like a contemporary take on the classic Stax Records sound with pleading vocals, Cropperesque guitar, and a rambunctious horn section while "Sixty-Eight Years Young" definitely brings the funk, a sly groove paired with a bit of Southern-fried chicken-pickin' and jaunty, tongue-in-cheek lyrics. Some 20 years and a dozen albums into his career and Bryan Lee still manages to surprise, Play One For Me an entertaining and inspired collection with no little heart and soul. Grade: A (Severn Records, released September 17th, 2013)

Archive Review: Seasick Steve’s Hubcap Music (2013)

Bluesman “Seasick” Steve Wold is an interesting character by any measure. Leaving his California home as a teenager, Wold traveled across country by train, living the hobo life while looking for work. Throughout the 1950s and early ‘60s, he drifted across the Southeast and Southwest U.S. working as a farm hand, a cowboy, and a carnie before he picked up the guitar and began playing his own unique style of country-blues. He ended up in Europe, where he made a living as a street busker playing for tips before he drifted into studio engineering and production where, most notably, he worked on the band Modest Mouse’s first couple of independent albums.

As Seasick Steve, Wold wouldn’t release his first album until 2004’s Cheap, which he recorded with the Norwegian duo the Level Devils. The critically-acclaimed Dog House Music, his solo debut, came out in 2006, and it was a New Year’s Eve appearance on fellow musician Jools Holland’s BBC television show that made Seasick Steve an overnight sensation in the U.K. Several albums and major festival appearances would follow throughout the late ‘00s, as would various awards and accolades. Seasick Steve made his debut for Jack White’s Third Man Records with 2011’s You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks, his fourth album in a row to go Gold or Platinum for U.K. sales. 

Seasick Steve’s Hubcap Music

Steve’s Hubcap Music, recorded with his longtime drummer Dan Magnusson, is named for one of the singer’s homemade guitars, his unusual instruments an appropriate match to his unique style of blues. The sound of an old tractor firing up introduces the jaunty “Down On the Farm,” a song not that far, stylistically, from Watermelon Slim’s similarly raw-boned roots-rock. With former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones holding down a fat bottom end and Magnusson delivering a big percussive beat, Seasick Steve cranks out some scorching licks on his hubcap guitar while he sings the praises of life, well, “down on the farm” with a John Deere tractor, the smell of hay, shovels and other farming implements, including a chainsaw. In the hands of any other artist this might seem trite, but Steve and the band deliver a playful, down-home boogie-blues with plenty of chainsaw riffs that wouldn’t seem out of place on a Canned Heat album.

Seasick Steve’s “Self Sufficient Man” slows the tempo down a bit, rolling as it does into a languid rhythmic grind with plenty of Mississippi mud rubbed into the grooves. Steve delivers some stellar guitarplay in between the mesmerizing riffs, his two-man band following closely in the creation of a heady swamp-water stew, the entire performance sounding like electrified, amplified Delta blues gone to a dark place. By contrast, “Keep On Keepin’ On” has more of a North Mississippi Hill Country vibe, Steve and the crew delivering a rockin’, R.L. Burnside burning down the juke-joint styled performance, Jones’ showing his skills as a multi-instrumentalist with some fine banjo pickin’.

Freedom Road

Seasick Steve 

Mr. Jack White III joins in for the down ‘n’ dirty “The Way I Do,” the guitarist adding some serpentine fretwork behind Steve’s haunting vocals on a menacing Mississippi blues jam worthy of the late, great Junior Kimbrough. Although sporting minimalist lyrics, Steve punches the words home with dead-certain finality, Magnusson’s cannon-fire drumbeats loudly punctuating each word. White’s guitar lines are unpredictable, imaginative, and entirely in keeping with the odd direction of the song. “Purple Shadows” is a gentler listening experience, a soft-edged slow-tempo Americana ballad that features underrated Nashville singer Elizabeth Cook. Steve’s gruff, twangy Merle Haggard-styled vocals contrast nicely with Cook’s sweeter feminine tones, the song a tale of love gone wrong, or maybe just unrequited, the two voices intertwined to emphasize the lyrical heartbreak.

The cacophony that opens “Freedom Road” is just a taste of the song’s raw, reckless performance with Steve strangling his hubcap git for every last damn note, the Jones/Magnusson rhythmic shuffle luring the listener into complacency as Steve’s lyrics evoke memories of Robert Johnson’s hellhounds, his sonorous vocals drawling out each word before the song launches into a raucous freight-train boogie worthy of Savoy Brown. North Mississippi Allstars frontman Luther Dickinson layers on bucketloads of slinky guitar on the trance-blues romp “Home,” but it’s the full band treatment offered “Coast Is Clear” that really mixes things up. After ten tracks of delightfully greasy roots ‘n’ blues, the album-ending “Coast Is Clear” is a swerve, an inspired mix of Stax-styled Memphis soul with gospel overtones and a Southern rock heart. It’s an elegant performance, spiced with Jones’ stately Hammond organ riffs and Steve’s considered vocals, the song representing a new musical direction for the expat bluesman if Seasick Steve should ever want to travel further down this stylistic road.       

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

If you’ve yet to discover the immense charms of Seasick Steve, Hubcap Music is a great place to start. The album’s carefully-crafted mix of country-blues, roots-rock, and Southern soul is delivered with the fervor a true believer, the instrumentation is truly inspired, and the guest performances are understated yet significant. Hubcap Music is delightfully entertaining, with many musical layers and textures, Seasick Steve definitely an underrated talent worthy of your consideration. The Rev says “check it out!” (Third Man Records, released October 15, 2013)

Archive Review: Nick Moss’s Here I Am (2011)

Over the course of a half-dozen or so studio and live albums with his excellent band the Flip Tops, singer and guitarist Nick Moss proved himself to be somewhat of a Chicago blues traditionalist. While the “Windy City” native would embellish the classic Chicago sound with a little houserockin’ energy from time to time, he was just as likely to go backwards in time, towards the “one step from the Delta” era of Tampa Red or Big Bill Broonzy, as he did with the acoustic disc of 2007’s acclaimed Play It ‘Til Tomorrow album. 

Drawing comparisons to another Chicago blues institution, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, it seemed as if Moss and the Flip Tops could do no wrong…and neither could they break out of the creative miasma that traditional blues can drag an artist into. Moss flipped the switch with his 2010 release Privileged. While still working with Flip Tops band members like multi-instrumentalist Gerry Hundt and drummer Bob Carter, Privileged was a solo album very much in a blues-rock vein, Moss sealing the deal with a high-octane cover of Cream’s “Politician.”    

Nick Moss’s Here I Am

Two years after unveiling his muscular new sound on the Blues Music Award nominated Privileged, Moss returns with a crackerjack new band and the steroids-enhanced, livewire blues-rock dinosaur stomp that is Here I Am. Building upon what now seem to be the tentative first steps of Privileged, Moss and his blues bruisers use a traditional Chicago blues framework to construct an imposing leviathan of riff-happy, percussion-heavy performances that masterfully weld familiar 1960s-era blues sounds to 1970s-and-‘80s-influenced, guitar-driven, amps-on-eleven blues-rock in the creation of a new 21st century blues paradigm.

Take, for instance, the album-opening “Why You So Mean?,” an unbridled seven-minute jam that smacks you upside the head from jump street with Moss’s fierce guitarplay, Travis Reed’s rollicking keyboards, and Patrick Seals’ unforgiving percussion. Grabbing the power and emotion of early Muddy Waters and matching it with the energy of 1970s-era Hound Dog Taylor, Moss unfolds a classic blues tune of romance and betrayal. As the locomotive rhythms and “Stumpy” Hutchkins’ throbbing bass line hold down the bottom end, Moss waxes pyrotechnic with an explosive six-string performance that storms out of your speakers like a bombing run, his anguished vocals providing an emotional urgency that is enhanced by the no-quarter-asked (and none given) nature of his screaming fretwork.

Blood Runs

If “Why You So Mean?” hasn’t left you on the floor gasping for breath, “Blood Runs” just might finish the job. A musclebound rocker with Southern soul roots, the song takes a little mojo from guitarist John Cipollina’s mesmerizing “Pride of Man” for its chorus, matching it with insightful and topical working class blues lyrics, Moss’s tortured vocals, Reed’s tinkling keys, and cool, gospel-styled backing harmonies. Moss’s solo is taut and menacing, like a barb-wire tattoo around your throat, while his intelligent lyrics pose a pretty damning question. The title track is a larger-than life musical throwback to Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin, with a soupcon of Z.Z. Top thrown in to provide a little Texas twang (especially in Moss’s fluid vocals). The lyrics are defiant, and perhaps more than a little biographical, delivered with strength and certainty.

Not all of Here I Am is monster-riffed, moshpit blues-rock Sturm und Drang, nosirree…Moss’s “It’ll Turn Around,” for instance, is a slow-paced and deliberate mix of blues and Southern rock with a positive message and elegant guitarplay, while “Caught By Surprise” bolts a funky rhythmic track to an R&B styled soul-blues heartbreaker with nuanced guitars, subdued but effective vocals, and syncopated drumbeats. The red-hot “Katie Ann (Slight Return)” takes its cue from Jimi Hendrix’s bluesier side, throws a little of droning North Mississippi Hill Country vibe into the gumbo pot, and seasons the mix with a little Delta mud, stirring up an engaging and mesmerizing performance that rocks hard, but cruises dangerously below the radar with jet-fighter riffs and bombastic percussion. The instrumental “Sunday Get Together” is a low-key but effective jam with wave upon wave of bluesy guitar, sparse drums, and keyboard flourishes atop a traditional foundation.          

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Unlike a lot of acclaimed fretburners that began their career playing blues-rock, Nick Moss is coming in through the side door after spending a couple decades as a sideman and bandleader working in pretty much a straight blues vein. Unburdened by the clichés and expectations of the blues-rock style that often serve as an obstacle to musicians, Moss has taken to the form like a duck to water, but on his own terms and with fresh ideas as to the execution of the music.

Here I Am is a stunning, electrifying, and entertaining collection that places Moss at the forefront of today’s blues-rock scene. Exploring, and often exploding the boundaries of the style, Moss has staked his claim as an innovator, creating new possibilities not only for blues-rock guitar but for the music altogether. While I personally believe that Moss is one album away from creating a bona fide blues-rock masterpiece that will endure the test of time, with Here I Am he has delivered a near-classic collection, while all of the pieces – from the songwriting to his eclectic and exciting fretwork – are falling into place like dominoes…can’t wait to hear what he does next! (Blue Bella Records, released November 22, 2011)

Archive Review: Big Bill Morganfield’s Blues With A Mood (2013)

Big Bill Morganfield is getting a lot of ink these days – and deservedly so – to go along with multiple Blues Music Award nominations for his 2012 debut Son of the Seventh Son. But Muddy Waters’ other blues-singing son has been quietly building a legacy of his own for better than a decade and a half. Since the 1999 release of Big Bill Morganfield’s Rising Son album (which won him a BMA for “Best New Blues Artist”), the singer, songwriter, and guitarist has become a popular live performer and perennial festival attraction.

Big Bill Morganfield’s Blues With A Mood

For his fifth album, Morganfield goes indie all the way, Blues With A Mood released on the artist’s own Black Shuck Records imprint. Recorded in Nashville with producer Colin Linden and an all-star cast that includes guitar greats Eddie Taylor Jr. and Bob Margolin, as well as keyboardist Augie Meyers (Sir Douglas Quintet, Texas Tornadoes) and harp player Richard “Doc” Malone, Morganfield scatters a few well-chosen covers across Blues With A Mood, surrounding them with solid original tunes written in an undeniably retro style.

Morganfield’s stated intent for Blues With A Mood was to deliver a moody set of performances that would evoke memories of old-school John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf, and Muddy Waters and I’d say that he’s accomplished his goal. Only the original “Money’s Getting’ Cheaper” evinces any sort of contemporary lyrical influence – then again, poverty has always been a part of the blues landscape – socially-conscious lyrics accompanied by a raging vocal performance, Jim Horn’s icy blasts of sax, and Meyers’ fleet-fingered honky-tonk piano. “No Butter For My Grits” is a humorous but starkly realistic talking blues with a Chicago blues swagger and a swamp-rock vibe that showcases the hypnotic guitar interplay between Taylor and Linden.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Altogether, Blues With A Mood is a throwback to the Chicago blues and R&B of the 1950s and early 1960s when giants roamed the streets of the West Side. Morganfield has this stuff hard-wired to his DNA, and Blues With A Mood isn’t so much an attempt to recreate those golden days as it is an inspired tribute to the era’s long-lasting influence, lovingly delivered with no little style and energy. (Black Shuck Records, released 2013)

Review originally published by Blues Music magazine...

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

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

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

Tab Benoit’s Legacy: The Best of Tab Benoit

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

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

The Blues Is Here To Stay

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

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

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

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

The Reverend's Guide to Record Store Day 2026

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Duke Robillard’s Stomp! The Blues Tonight

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

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

West Coast Jump Blues

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

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

Introducing Sunny Crownover

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

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

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

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

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

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

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

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

Omar Dykes’ Runnin’ With the Wolf

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

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

Smokestack Lightning

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

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

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

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

 

Omar Kent Dykes

 

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

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

Omar & the Howlers’ Essential Collection

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

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

Omar’s Picks

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

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

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

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

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

 

Omar & the Howlers