If you stop to think about it, Walter Trout is the perfect candidate to record a tribute album to the late blues guitarist Luther Allison. As a friend, mentor, and musical influence, Allison obviously had a profound effect on Trout. Both men are incredibly talented guitarists and, much like Allison, Trout pours it all out on stage every night, leaving his audience as wrung out and satisfied as Allison famously did.
Walter Trout’s Luther’s Blues: A Tribute To Luther Allison
Even the best of intentions can fall short, however, but I’m happy to report that Trout’s tribute to his friend – Luther’s Blues – rocks like a proverbial hurricane. Working with producer Eric Corne, who helped Trout shape his acclaimed 2012 album Blues For the Modern Daze, the guitarist unleashes decades of pent-up blues mojo on eleven tracks written, or made famous by Allison, as well as an inspired, brand new original. The results are breathtaking, with Trout investing the same sort of blood, sweat, and tears to the re-creation of these songs as Allison did when first recording them.
Allison’s “Cherry Red Wine” is, perhaps, the guitarist’s best-known song and, in Trout’s hands, it’s a burning mess of emotion that underlines its crying vocals with devastating fretwork that takes the heartbreak from pity to anger to sorrow in an amazing four minutes plus. Allison’s “Big City” is a potent, muscular rocker with scorched earth guitar licks while “Freedom” showcases Trout’s often underrated vocals with a stunning performance that does justice to the song’s socially-conscious lyrics. Trout cuts loose on his original “When Luther Played The Blues,” tearing up the strings with an inspired reading that is both reverent and a showcase of the lessons learned from watching Allison perform.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Walter Trout has built a career that he can be proud of but, with Luther’s Blues, he has delivered a powerful tribute to a great, but frequently overlooked talent. If Trout’s efforts get just one young blues fan to pick up a copy of Allison’s Bad News Is Coming or Soul Fixin’ Man, then he can consider his mission accomplished. (Provogue Records, released April 13th, 2013)
Guitarist Walter Trout is one of the most popular bluesmen on the planet, and for good reason – he gives everything he has with every live performance, and his albums are rich compositions of passion, emotion, intelligence, and energy that few artists can match. So the opportunity to enter 2019 with a brand new album from the talented fretburner is good news, indeed! On January 25th, 2019 Provogue Records will release Trout’s Survivor Blues, an inspired twelve-track collection of vintage blues songs chosen by Walter with his usual eye for quality. Survivor Blues will be released on CD, as a double-LP vinyl set, and as a digital download in various formats.
In a press release for Survivor Blues, Trout explains his original concept for the album, which isn’t just another collection of blues standards. “I’m riding in my car sometimes, and I’ve got a blues station on – and here’s another band doing ‘Got My Mojo Workin’. And there’s a little voice in me that says, ‘Does the world need another version of that song?’ So I came up with an idea. I didn’t want to do ‘Stormy Monday’ or ‘Messin’ With the Kid.’ I didn’t want to do the Blues greatest hits. I wanted to do old, obscure songs that have hardly been covered. And that’s how Survivor Blues started...”
The album reflects Trout’s 50 years playing the blues, featuring material from such touchstones as underrated guitarist Jimmy Dawkins (“Me, My Guitar, and the Blues”); his former boss in the Bluesbreakers, British blues legend John Mayall (“Nature’s Disappearing”); Chicago blues pianist Sunnyland Slim (“Be Careful How You Vote”); and the great Otis Rush (“It Takes Time”), who passed away earlier this year. Survivor Blues also includes high-octane takes of songs by artists like Luther Johnson, J.B. Lenoir, and Mississippi Fred McDowell, among others. Silk-toned singer Sugaray Rayford guest stars on Johnson’s “Woman Don’t Lie” and Robbie Krieger of the Doors appears on McDowell’s “Goin’ Down To the River.”
Trout says “my idea was to do these songs like me, to arrange them for my band and style – not to just copy the originals note-for-note.” Survivor Blues was produced by Trout and his longtime producer Eric Corne with the music created by Trout’s bandmates, bassist Johnny Griparic, drummer Michael Leasure, and keyboardist Skip Edwards. “I’d play them the original,” remembers Trout, “and then I’d say, ‘here’s how the song goes, what have you got?’ I’d give these guys a lot of freedom. The record was mostly done live, with us set up in a circle, just to get the feel of us going there together. And you can feel it, y’know?”
Trout and his band will be touring in support of Survivor Blues, beginning with a short jaunt across the U.S. before heading to Europe for a series of dates; we’ve included a list of these tour dates below. Knowing Walter, however, additional dates will be scheduled so keep your eyes on your local blues-friendly venue ‘cause watching Walter Trout perform is a life-changing affirmation of the power of the blues. In the meantime, get a taste of the new album from the audio clip below.
Walter Trout solo tour dates
1/11/19 @ Rhythm Room, Phoenix AZ
1/12/19 @ Rhythm Room, Phoenix AZ
2/01/19 @ Knucklehead's, Kansas City MO
2/02/19 @ Winter Blues Fest, Des Moines IA
2/05/19 @ Sony Hall, New York NY
2/07/19 @ The Hamilton, Washington DC
2/08/19 @ Infinity Music Hall, Hartford CT
2/09/19 @ The Newton Theatre, Newton NJ
2/10/19 @ The Cabot, Beverly MA
2/12/19 @ Ram's Head, Annapolis MD
2/16/19 @ Costa Rica Blues Festival, Playa Potrero Guanacaste, Costa Rica
2/19/19 @ Tin Pan, Richmond VA
2/23/19 @ The Funky Biscuit, Boca Raton FL
2/24/19 @ The Funky Biscuit, Boca Raton FL
2/25 - 03/01/19 @ Keeping the Blues Alive At Sea Tampa FL
Rockin' Blues 2019 European Tour (with Jonny Lang & Kris Barros)
5/23/19 @ Huxley’s Neue Welt, Berlin GERMANY
5/25/19 @ Carlswerk Viktoria Cologne GERMANY
5/26/19 @ La Cigale, Paris FRANCE
5/28/19 @ Fabrique, Milan ITALY
5/29/19 @ Backstage Werk, Munich GERMANY
5/30/19 @ Batschkapp, Frankfurt GERMANY
6/01/19 @ 013, Tilburg NETHERLANDS
6/02/19 @ Markthalle, Hamburg GERMANY
6/04/19 @ 02 Forum Kentisch Town, London UK
Memphis born-and-bred blues-rock guitarist Eric Gales has enjoyed a storied career. His Hendrix-influenced but unique guitar style was unveiled when Elektra Records released his debut album as the Eric Gales Band (with brother Eugene) in 1991 when the guitarist was but sixteen years old. The talented string-bender has released fourteen studio albums total in the quarter-century since his debut, including ten on major labels, as well as live discs like last year’s A Night On The Sunset Strip CD and DVD.
On February 24th, 2017 Provogue Records will release Gales’ Middle of the Road, the guitarist’s follow-up to his critically-acclaimed 2014 album Good For Sumthin’. It’s Gales fourth album for the esteemed European blues/blues-rock label, including 2010’s Relentless and 2011’s Transformation. The title of the new album – “middle of the road” – is also the theme of the collection. Says Gales, in a press release for the album, “it’s about being fully focused and centered in the middle of the road. If you’re on the wrong side and in the gravel you’re not too good and if you’re on the median strip that’s not too good either, so being in the middle of the road is the best place to be.”
Middle of the Road was recorded with producer Fabrizio Grossi (Supersonic Blues Machine) in locations like Fab’s Lab and Room A Studio in North Hollywood as well as Cuz Studio and Sound in Cleveland, Mississippi and Cotton Row Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. Gales was backed in the studio by drummer Aaron Haggerty, keyboardist Dylan Wiggins, and backing singer LaDonna Gales with Eric providing vocals, guitar, and bass. “I played bass on the entire record, it was beautiful. I’m a bass player at heart,” says Gales, “so Fabrizio was like ‘bro you need to be playing the bass’. It was something that was very natural for me, too. I loved it.” Guests on the album include Lauryn Hill, Gary Clark Jr, Lance Lopez, and brother Eugene, among others.
Much of Middle of the Road deals with the changes in Gales’ life as he’s kicked his addictions and embarked on a new journey. This new direction is reflected on “Change In Me [The Rebirth]” of which Gales says, “I changed up some things in life and decided to go a new route.” The song “Carry Yourself,” co-written with Raphael Saadiq, is about Gales’ wife LaDonna. “It’s about how we met and how we grew to get to know each other through life and how she’s always carried herself. It has always been something I’m fascinated with.” The album’s lone cover is of Freddie King’s “Boogie Man,” which features a duel with fretburner Gary Clark Jr., while Gales’ original “Help Yourself” features sixteen year-old guitarist Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.
Although he’s been in the trenches for better than 25 years now, Gales has seldom received the acclaim that he so richly deserves. Fellow musicians are aware of his talent, however, with artists like Joe Bonamassa, Carlos Santana, Dave Navarro (Jane’s Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers), and Mark Tremonti (Alter Bridge), among others, singing Gales praises. Middle of the Road may just be the album that earns Eric Gales the success and status he’s due.
Our long-awaited return to That Devil Music's "Video of the Week" feature is not so much a 'video' but rather a sound file for the title track from 17-year-old blues guitar phenom Quinn Sullivan's debut album, Midnight Highway. Scheduled for January 27th, 2017 release by our friends at Provogue Records, the track displays enormous artistic maturity to go along with impressive instrumental talent.
Quinn began playing guitar at age three and came to the attention of Chicago blues legend Buddy Guy when he was but eight years old. Since that time, he's been mentored by Guy and has played on festival stages around the world with giants like B.B. King and Eric Clapton. As heard on this track, Sullivan possesses a soulful, smooth vocal style to go along with his six-string skills. Midnight Highway, the album, is the guitarist's official "coming out" party and it should be a helluva good time. We may be looking at the next Joe Bonamassa here, so check out the track and you'll agree, Quinn Sullivan is the real deal!
BONUS TRACK! Provogue has released "She Gets Me," another great track from guitarist Quinn Sullivan's debut album, Midnight Highway, out on Friday, January 27th, 2017.
Canadian blues-rock guitarist Jeff Healey’s death in March 2008 – just a couple weeks before the release of his excellent Mess of Blues album – launched a slow-burning reappraisal of the musician’s career. There have been a slew of posthumous releases since Healey’s tragic death at the tender age of 41 years, most of them live recordings or patchwork quilts of live and studio material. Some albums have been authorized by Healey’s estate (i.e. his wife Cristie), but others have not. Heal My Soul is an estate-authorized collection personally curated by producer Roger Costa, in whose capable hands the guitarist’s legacy has been placed.
The back story goes like this – during the last few years of the Jeff Healey Band in the late 1990s, the guitarist wrote and recorded up a storm, creating and archiving better than three dozen songs in a blues-rock vein before dropping out of the major label rat-race to pursue his other passion, old-school jazz music. Although thirteen songs from this tsunami of creativity were releases in 2000 as Get Me Some, the rest of the treasure has sat, untouched, in the archive for almost two decades. Costa culled a dozen of Healey’s best performances, restoring and remixing the original master tapes into Heal My Soul. In doing so, Costa removed any period-specific sounds to better emphasize Healey’s enormous talents, the results sometimes shocking but never unpleasing...
Jeff Healey’s Heal My Soul
Although Healey’s softer side may be represented further down the album, Heal My Soul kicks off with the explosive “Daze of the Night,” a blues-metal styled track written with Marti Frederiksen and featuring clamorous rhythms, roaring vocals, and molten licks that would sound perfectly at home on any Clutch LP. Healey fronts a traditional power trio here comprised of his former JHB compatriot Joe Rockman (bass) and drummer Dean Glover, which are featured on most of these songs. Healey’s vox rage surprisingly across the track, his high-flying solos soaring above the same ballpark as, say, Randy Rhodes or Jake E. Lee (both former Ozzy fretburners, BTW). It’s a mighty strong performance, and one that will have you looking at Mr. Healey in an entirely different light.
Costa does a masterful job of arranging the sequencing here to keep things interesting, and the party rolls on with “Moodswing,” written by the Toronto-based songwriting collective known as The Phantoms. The song is a rockin’ bit o’ blues-tinged metal-flake that takes the guitarist out of his comfort zone but proves that Healey could shred the steel strings with the best of them. Rather than the blizzard of notes that boxed a listener’s ears on “Daze of the Night,” Healey’s reading of “Moodswing” proffers a darker ambiance, his screeching solos showing a hint of psychedelic madness that is matched by noisy rhythms and, well…‘moody’ vocals that lean in a blues direction, if you know what I mean...
I Misunderstood
By contrast, “Baby Blue” is the sort of acoustic ballad that helped win Healey a mainstream audience, and he delivers a beautiful performance here, his elegant but subdued fretwork dazzling alongside his rich, multi-tracked vocals and harmonies. Healey does a magnificent job interpreting Richard Thompson’s somber “I Misunderstood,” his vocals dropping into a lower register to mimic the British guitarist’s heartbreaking lyrical voice. Unlike Thompson’s original take, though, which appeared on 1991’s Rumor and Sigh album, Healey channels his own personal emotions through his fingers, bringing an eerie vibe to the guitar lines and making the song his own even while paying tribute to its writer.
“Please,” co-written with fellow six-string maniac Stevie Salas, is another red-hot wildfire, Healey delivering the vocals with a sense of urgency missing among the previous songs. His bluesy, hard-rocking performance shows that he missed his calling – although we blues fans have long respected Healey’s six-string talents, he could have jumped into the hard rock/metal fray and become a true “Guitar God,” putting suckers like Joe Satriani and Steve Vai to shame with the soulfulness inherent in his playing. That said, “Please” is a helluva song, a wall-to-wall sonic assault that will leave you gasping for air and hungry for more.
All The Saints
Firmly back on familiar ground, “Temptation” is the sort of Delta-bred blues jam that Healey has always excelled at; the performance here is pumped up on steroids, with jagged guitar licks reverberating off the kudzu vine while crashing drumbeats capture the rhythms of the swamp these deep blues were born in. Again, this is Jeff Healey as you’ve seldom heard him before, his stunning guitarplay a revelation, slyly mixing hard-times blues with sharp-edged hard rock to create a truly dangerous sound. Although there’s still a familiar six-string Sturm und Drang running as an undercurrent beneath the poppier “Kiss The Ground You Walk On,” the song’s vocal harmonies and plaintive vocals could have earned Healey a 1990s-era radio hit if it had been released.
With sparse instrumentation and Healey’s filigree guitar, “All The Saints” is a hauntingly beautiful performance that places the spotlight on the guitarist’s expressive vocals, which are often overshadowed by his instrumental prowess. The guitar strum is elevated by Healey’s imaginative playing, his emotional vox offering a window to the singer’s soul. Rhythm guitarist Phillip Sayce joins in on “Put The Shoe On The Other Foot,” a funky, strutting bit of R&B swagger that evinces no little energy but lots of instrumental chops. Heal My Soul closes out with the surprising “It’s The Last Time,” a twang-tinged slice of pop-country that dresses up the blues in Nashville finery to fine effect. Healey’s fluid guitar lines bridge the gap between Hank Williams and Robert Johnson, channeling the sad-eyed ghosts of love-gone-wrong in what should have been another massive radio hit for the star-crossed artist.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
Because Jeff Healey dabbled in so many musical idioms – pop, rock, blues, old timey jazz – his handful of recordings tend to run the gamut of style and expression. Heal My Soul provides a little of something for almost every Healey fan, no matter what genre and era of the guitarist’s work you may adore. The album offers up a few pleasant surprises and a lot that’s comfortably familiar, with Healey’s charismatic presence, wonderful guitar tone, and timeless talent dominating the grooves. Most of all, the album captures Healey playing as he wanted to play, without label or management interference, the guitarist clearly reveling in the sheer joy of the songs.
If Heal My Soul ends up being the last of Healey’s posthumous releases, he’ll have gone out on a high note; if not, it’s certainly one hell of a collection that displays the man’s enormous – and often overlooked talents – in the very best light. There’s literally nothing I don’t like here, and that’s the highest praise I can give. Grade: A+ (Provogue Records, released March 25, 2016)
ALIVE In Amsterdam is a triumph for the beloved bluesman, Trout’s 2013 diagnosis of Hepatitis C and liver failure bringing the guitarist to the edge of death. A successful transplant in May 2014 was followed by a lengthy recuperation and rehab period, during which Trout wrote the stark autobiographical songs that make up 2015’s Battle Scars CD. Overjoyed to be back on the road again performing for his fans, of the performance documented by ALIVE In Amsterdam, Trout says, in a press release for the album, “we were rocking. If people are expecting a laid-back show, that’s not what they’ll get. This is potent stuff...”
ALIVE In Amsterdam features songs from every era of Trout’s five-decade (and counting) career, including his B.B. King tribute “Say Goodbye To The Blues,” a scorching cover of his idol Luther Allison’s “I’m Back” as well as Trout originals like “Almost Gone” and “Tomorrow Seems So Far Away.” Says Trout, “that whole tour was kind of triumphant for me, just to be back, after what I went through, but also to be playing with a renewed energy and commitment.” Truly at home on the stage, ALIVE IN Amsterdam captures Trout’s pure joy in performing. “I get into the energy and the moment and the excitement of it all,” he says. “I think I'm a very different guitarist live...”
Check out the track list below, and then get thee over to Amazon.com to reserve your copy of Walter Trout’s ALIVE In Amsterdam!
ALIVE In Amsterdam track list:
1. Marie's Introduction
2. Play The Guitar
3. Help Me
4. I'm Back
5. Say Goodbye To The Blues
6. Almost Gone
7. Omaha
8. Tomorrow Seems So Far Away
9. Playin' Hideaway
10. Haunted By The Night
11. Fly Away
12. Please Take Me Home
13. Rock Me Baby
14. Marie's Mood
15. Serve Me Right To Suffer
16. The Love That We Once Knew
Guitar God Leslie West will be roaring once again come on November 20th, 2015 when Provogue Records releases his 16th solo album, titled Soundcheck. The follow-up to West’s critically-acclaimed 2013 set Still Climbing, the new disc seems to be a mix of new material and previously-unreleased performances that have been pulled from the archives, given a new coat of attitude, and unleashed on the public on Soundcheck.
Among the guests joining West in making music for the new album are guitarists Peter Frampton and Brian May of Queen, former Jeff Beck keyboardist Max Middleton, singer Bonnie Bramlett, and West’s old West, Bruce & Laing bandmate, bassist Jack Bruce. Soundcheck was co-produced by West and engineer Mike “Metal” Goldberg and features West wielding his instrument on an inspired mix of original material and often-unusual cover songs.
West tackles the blues standard “Goin’ Down” with the ferocity of Freddie King. Joined by Queen’s May on guitar, pianist Middleton, legendary Muscle Shoals session bassist David Hood, Bobby Whitlock on keyboards, and Bramlett on backing vocals, West tears through the song like a hungry dog into a t-bone, sharing solos with May, the two guitarist’s differing styles oddly complimentary. Soundcheck also features a reverent, haunting cover of Curtis Mayfield’s soul classic “People Get Ready,” which offers some incredible guitarwork; a reading of Tracy Chapman’s hit “Give Me Just One Reason,” performed in a soaring blues style; and a raucous live version of Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful,” recorded in 1988 with Jack Bruce on bass and vocals, and Joe Franco on drums.
West’s sizzling slide-guitar playing is punctuated by Frampton’s fretwork on a minor-key cover of “You Are My Sunshine” that represents another odd musical choice. “I watch the television show, Sons of Anarchy,” says West in a press release for Soundcheck, “and during one episode, a minor-key version of this song was playing in the background. I thought, Whoa…that sounds so different! I recorded it and sent it to Peter, and we trade solos and then play harmony lines together at the end. Also, I’m playing slide while he’s playing conventionally. His tone is phenomenal on this, with a warm sound and a really nice vibrato, and he loved the arrangement. To take a song you’ve heard all of your life and change it around like this is very cool.”
Considering a career that dates back to the Vagrants in the late 1960s, hard rock titans Mountain during the 1970s, and a legendary solo career that has spanned five decades, West muses “you know, when it comes to talent, we don’t all move at the same rate of speed. Some people start at the top of their game and after 10 or 20 years you wonder what the hell happened to them. I like to joke that the older I get, the better I used to be, but after giving up drugs and smoking, my voice can hit notes that I never could reach before. I’m thankful for that.” Listening to Soundcheck, it just might be West’s best of a long and accomplished career.
Listening to “Almost Gone,” the lead-off track from blues-rock guitarist Walter Trout’s upcoming album Battle Scars, all I can say is “Damn!” If this white-hot slab o’ scorching guitar and anguished vocals doesn’t sucker-punch your soul, well, all I can say is that it must suck to be you…
On October 23rd, 2015, Provogue Records will release Trout’s Battle Scars, the much-anticipated follow-up to the guitarist’s acclaimed 2014 album The Blues Came Callin’, and his first since undergoing life-saving liver transplant surgery last year. If Trout’s previous album was reflected the uncertainty and fear caused by his illness, Battle Scars is a chronicle of Trout’s fight to survive, the singer/songwriter staring down death and living to tell the tale.
One thing for certain, as shown by the heat and energy of “Almost Gone,” is that Trout is back and better than ever. In a press release for Battle Scars, Trout says “I’m thrilled about this album, about my life and about my music. I feel that I’m reborn as a songwriter, a singer, a guitarist and a human being. I have a new chance at being the best musician and the best man that I can be. And I’m incredibly happy and grateful.”
A little more than a year ago, Trout was lying in a hospital bed, unable to move or speak as his liver was failing. After receiving the transplant in May 2014, and suffering through the difficult recuperation process, Trout began the long and tortuous process of healing. “At first I wasn’t strong enough to play a single note on the guitar,” he says, “but as I regained my strength, the music came back to me. Now when I pick up the guitar, it is liberating, joyful, and limitless. I feel like I’m 17 again.”
Arriving in Los Angeles in 1973, Trout was schooled in the blues while playing behind legends like John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Finis Tasby, and Lowell Fulsom, among others. Trout burnished his blues bona fides first as a member of blues-rock legends Canned Heat, then moving on to play five years as part of British blues legend John Mayall’s famed Bluesbreakers band. Trout launched his solo career in 1989 with his debut album Life In The Jungle, and has since become one of the blues most beloved artists, earning the guitarist numerous awards and accolades.
Before his illness sidelined the hard-touring guitarist, Trout had planned on celebrating the 25th anniversary of his solo career with a lengthy tour and deluxe vinyl reissues of many of his solo albums. Rescued From Reality: The Life and Times of Walter Trout, Trout’s autobiography, was written with noted British music journalist Henry Yates (full disclosure – Henry is my editor at The Blues magazine) and released to great reviews in 2014. Although the planned 2014 tour didn’t happen, Trout returned to the stage this spring and plans on touring heavily in support of Battle Scars with his band – keyboardist Sammy Avila, bassist Johnny Griparic, and drummer Michael Leasure.
As for all his loyal fans that stood by Trout during his illness, and donated over $240,000 to help with his medical expenses, the guitarist says “I don’t take this lightly. Marie [his wife] says that all of the people who donated to our fundraiser for my medical expenses bought stock in me and my liver. When I play for them now, I have a responsibility to give back and offer the very best that I have.” As anybody who has ever attended one of his shows already knows, Walter Trout has always been an electrifying live performer. Given a new lease on life after a lengthy struggle, and with the “battle scars” to prove it, Trout will be paying his fans back one show at a time.
Although he’s enjoyed a solo career that dates back some 30+ years and includes ten overwhelmingly acclaimed albums, guitarist Sonny Landreth remains best known for his role as ‘sideman to the stars.’ Throughout his lengthy career, Landreth has played and recorded with artists like John Hiatt, John Mayall, Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Buffet, to name but a few. But since the release of his 1981 solo debut Blues Attack, Landreth has consistently delivered high-quality, guitar-oriented music that cleverly mixes blues, rock, folk, zydeco, and jazz into a sound that defines the Americana genre.
Bound By The Blues is Landreth’s first album since 2012’s Elemental Journey, the guitarist’s first totally instrumental work, one that incorporated more than a little jazz influence along with Landreth’s signature guitar-driven blues-rock sound. Landreth takes back the microphone with Bound By The Blues but, really, the new album is notable in that it represents the guitarist’s most blues-oriented effort since 2003’s The Road We’re On, which was also recorded with bassist David Ranson and drummer Brian Brignac. Although Landreth has never strayed too far from the blues he loves with his solo work, neither has he been afraid to experiment with other forms, challenging his talents as well as those of his band members.
Sonny Landreth’s Bound By The Blues
So what does Sonny Landreth’s first blues album in over a decade sound like? Well, Bound By The Blues opens with the deep Southern groove of Robert Johnson’s “Walkin’ Blues,” which is about as bluesy as one can get unless your name is Charley Patton. Landreth’s familiar, fluid slide-guitar slithers throughout the arrangement, the band banging and crashing nicely in developing a chaotic rhythm behind Landreth’s warm vocals as his guitar leaps out of the speakers and grabs you by the ears. Landreth’s original title track keeps the raucous vibe going strong, the singer name-checking his musical heroes like Jimi Hendrix and Muddy Waters while picking out a strong, affecting guitar line. Landreth’s blistering solo here is washed in Delta mud, soaring and swooping like the ghosts of a dozen long-dead Mississippi bluesman laying down a juke-joint stomp.
A cover of Elmore James’ beautiful “It Hurts Me Too” displays the perfect balance of blues and soul, the mid-tempo ballad built on a swaying Chicago blues rhythm but featuring plenty of Landreth’s signature guitar tone and technique, his emotional vocals supported by considered guitarplay that, while reverent in honoring the original, threatens to leap over the edge nonetheless with crackling electricity. The original “Where They Will” changes gears somewhat, the song’s slightly exotic rhythms matched by Landreth’s somber vocals and scraps of subtle, almost understated guitar that explodes with the singer’s refrain “let the blues takes me where they will,” his haunted voice increasingly supported by graveyard fretwork as the song’s protagonist stares down his own mortality. It’s a subtle but strong performance, one that nicely showcases Landreth’s underrated talents as a singer and songwriter.
Firebird Blues (In Memory of Johnny Winter)
A lively cover of Skip James’ “Cherry Ball Blues” is less serious than its predecessor on the album, Landreth putting a little more twang into his reading of the lyrics, cutting loose with a red-hot barrage of notes that flows like molten lava beneath the band’s explosive rhythms. Landreth’s solo at the two-and-a-half mark veers dangerously close to heavy metal territory, combining the blues-influenced hard rock edge of, say, Robin Trower or Pat Travers with Landreth’s undeniable sense of the genre. Landreth ventures further onto blues-rock turf with “Firebird Blues,” his tribute to the late Johnny Winter.
A heartfelt instrumental track, Landreth pours his grief and loss into a phenomenal performance on “Firebird Blues” that honors the history of Texas blues, from Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Willie Johnson through Lightnin’ Hopkins and Winter himself. What better way to further pay tribute to Winter than to re-visit the Johnson songbook via Elmore James and a rowdy version of “Dust My Broom”? Landreth shakes the arrangement up a bit, his take on the blues classic a little looser, but no less swinging, the guitarist coaxing some unusual tones out of his guitar while doing the song proud with a strong vocal reading that dances spryly on top of the jaunty rhythmic foundation constructed by bassist Ranson and drummer Brignac.
An equally effective cover of Big Bill Broonzy’s classic “Key To The Highway” skews closer to the Piedmont blues of the original than to Eric Clapton’s British blues perspective. Beneath his hearty vocals, though, Landreth lays down greasy, Louisiana swamp guitar licks that outpace either of the aforementioned artist’s efforts; Landreth’s imaginative playing moving in lockstep with the rhythm section. Bound By The Blues closes out far too soon with Landreth’s rockin’ original, “Simcoe Street.” A fleet-footed instrumental track with a locomotive rhythm and Landreth’s livewire fretwork, the song sounds like a contemporary take on the sort of boogie-infused blues-rock practiced by 1970s rollers like Foghat and Humble Pie.
The Reverend’s Bottom Line
If you’re already a Sonny Landreth fan – and how can you not be? – you don’t need to be told to run down to your indie record store and lay down your shekels for a copy of Bound By The Blues. But if you’re unfamiliar with the talents and charm of Mr. Landreth, or just a newbie blues fan altogether, the album is a great place to begin delving into the music of this (still) underrated singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Grade: A- (Provogue Records, released June 9, 2015)
