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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vinyl Review: Big Bill Broonzy's The Midnight Special (2020)

BIG BILL BROONZY
The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957

Side One:
1. This Train
2. Trouble In Mind
3. Willie Mae
4. In the Evening
5. Glory of Love
6. The Midnight Special
7. What King of Man Jesus Is

Side Two:
1. Keep Your Hand Off It
2. Nobody’s Business
3. Hey! Bub
4. The Feasting Table
5. C.C. Rider
6. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
7. Goodnight Irene

Chicago Blues Legend Big Bill Broonzy

Chicago blues legend “Big Bill” Broonzy was a bridge between the rural, Delta-influenced country blues of the 1920s and ‘30s and the more urbane, sophisticated “big city” blues created in hotbeds like Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis during the 1940s and ‘50s. Although not as well-known as near-mythical contemporaries like Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, or even Son House, Broonzy’s influence can be heard in the music of those touched by his kindness, giants of the genre like Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, whose careers he helped when they first arrived in Chicago. Although he died in 1958 at the age of 65 years old, Broonzy’s music also inspired a generation of British rockers like Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, John Lennon of the Beatles, Dave Davies of the Kinks, and guitarists Rory Gallagher and Eric Clapton, among many others.

Born, literally, on the banks of the Mississippi River, Broonzy moved with his parents to Chicago as a teenager in 1920, picking up the guitar and learning to play from older bluesmen like Papa Charlie Jackson. Broonzy began recording in the mid-‘20s and by the early ‘30s he was a commanding figure on the Chicago blues scene who would help define the city’s early sound. Capable of playing in both the older vaudeville styles (ragtime and hokum) and the newly-developing, more sophisticated Chicago style, Broonzy was a smooth vocalist, accomplished guitarist, and a prolific songwriter.

Broonzy began recording for Paramount in 1927, but it was his work for Bluebird Records during the 1930s, including playing behind talents like Tampa Red, Washboard Sam, and John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, that helped define the popular sound that was known as “The Bluebird Beat.” In 1938, Broonzy performed at John Hammond’s “Spirituals To Swing” concert in New York City as a last-minute replacement for the late Delta bluesman Robert Johnson. The appearance introduced an entirely new audience to his music, winning him a small role in the film Swingin’ The Dream alongside Benny Goodman and Louis Armstrong. When the post-war blues boom rendered Broonzy’s quaint homegrown style a thing of the past, he re-invented himself as a singer of authentic folk-blues and became one of the first blues artists to tour Europe, developing a new and appreciative following among blues-crazed British teens.

Big Bill Broonzy’s The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957

Chicago bluesman Big Bill Broonzy

The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957 documents one of Broonzy’s late-career concerts, this one in Nottingham, England and possibly one of the bluesman’s last-ever performances before his death a year later. The album was mastered from original analog tape by Dave Gardner at Infrasonic Mastering and is surprisingly good, given the antiquated vintage of the recording. A sound engineer can only work with what they have on tape, and recordings from the ‘50s generally don’t have much sonic dynamic to enhance, but Gardner did a fine job here, Broonzy’s vocals and guitar sounding slightly muffled, but distinct enough to be entertaining and better than many dodgy 1990s-era live recordings I’ve heard. And make no mistake, Broonzy’s performance this night was, indeed, very entertaining.

The folk-blues “songster” runs through a setlist here of blues, folk, and Gospel standards, imbuing each with his unique character and charisma. The traditional “This Train” is a perfect showcase for Broonzy’s nimble-fingered fretwork, the song’s up-tempo arrangement complimented by Broonzy’s hearty vocals. The bluesman’s original “Willie Mae” is a similarly upbeat tune with wiry guitar licks and moaned lyrics while a cover of Leroy Carr’s “In the Evening” is provided a smoldering, passionate vocal delivery that is punctuated by Broonzy’s jazzy picking. “The Midnight Special” is a traditional Southern folk tune popularized in the 1930s by the great Leadbelly, and later recorded by everybody from Bob Dylan and Little Richard to the Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Broonzy’s jaunty reading of the old chestnut is highlighted by his warm vocals and spry guitar strum.

Broonzy’s original “Keep Your Hands Off Her” is mistitled here, the song originally released as a single in 1935 by Bluebird Records and it’s a fine example of the light-hearted “hokum” blues style with buoyant guitar picking and upbeat, double-entendre lyrics. The traditional “Ain’t Nobody’s Business” was recorded with some success by blueswomen like Alberta Hunter and Bessie Smith in the 1920s, and Broonzy’s version here plays up the song’s vaudeville roots with a brilliantly-upbeat performance and jazzy guitar-playing. “The Feasting Table” is one of a handful of Gospel “spirituals” included on The Midnight Special, this one leaning more towards a raucous tent revival in its energetic reading and scattershot guitarplay.

Although the song’s true origins are shrouded in mystery, Broonzy released “C.C. Rider” (a/k/a “See See Rider”) as a single in 1934. Ragtime pianist Jelly Roll Morton recalled hearing the song as far back as 1901, and Broonzy claims to have been taught the song by a former slave when he was but 10 years old. The song is no worse for the wear, however, and Broonzy’s infectious reading here is enhanced by an inspired mix of blues, jazz, and country twang. The Midnight Special closes with two performances from an “informal backstage session,” the spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and Leadbelly’s folk-blues standard “Goodnight Irene.” The former is a reverent, fervid performance with Broonzy’s wailing voice staggering at first before breaking into a joyous noise while the latter song is provided a loose, almost rowdy reading with nearly-bellowed vocals and scraps of accompanying guitar.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Big Bill Broonzy’s The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957 offers an impressive representation of the artist’s immense instrumental talents, his on-stage presence and crowd-pleasing patter, and his innate ability to interpret a wide range of then-contemporary musical styles. As mentioned above, the album’s sound quality is better than one could hope for, and the artist’s performance displays why Broonzy was held in such high regard by his peers.

There is precious little “live” Broonzy available for blues fans; just a mere handful of albums now commanding collectors’ prices, and just one of a similar vintage – Southland’s The Historic Concert Recordings CD captures an 18-song Belgium performance from 1957 – which was released in 1990 and has been out-of-print nearly as long. Org Music’s vinyl release of The Midnight Special is the first appearance of this particular show that I could find, and is available on both shiny black wax from Org Music or pressed on coral-colored vinyl, available exclusively from Vinyl Me, Please (links to both below).

If you’re an old-school blues fan unfamiliar with the artist’s charms, you owe it to yourself to check out The Midnight Special, which provides an engaging introduction to Big Bill Broonzy. If you’re already a fan of Broonzy’s music, then what are you waiting for? Get it! (Org Music, released July 24th, 2020)

Buy the vinyl! Org Music link

Buy the colored wax! Vinyl Me, Please link