CD Review: Captain Beyond's Lost & Found 1972-1973 (2017)

Arguably the first true rock ‘n’ roll ‘supergroup’ of the ’70s, Captain Beyond never rose above the band’s cult status to achieve the fame and fortune they deserved. Formed by former Deep Purple singer Rod Evans (the voice on early Purple hits like “Hush” and “Kentucky Woman”) with guitarist Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt and bassist Lee Dorman – both refugees from Iron Butterfly – and Bobby Caldwell, Johnny Winter’s former drummer, Captain Beyond sounded like no other band at the time. Their self-titled debut album, released in 1972, was notable for its mind-blowing 3-D cover art (created using lenticular printing) and its heady, ambitious mix of guitar-driven, proto-metal hard rock and improvisational jazz influences.

The music of Captain Beyond was tailor-made for the bourgeoning progressive rock audience, the album’s songs zipping along the grooves with ever-evolving time signatures and whiplash sonic dynamics. In ‘Rhino’ Reinhardt, the band had a guitarist who could rock with the best of his contemporaries but also knew an odd, enticing lick or two, and the Dorman/Caldwell rhythm section played more like seasoned jazzbos than plodding rockers, together developing a complex foundation for Evans’ ‘rock star’ vocals. The album was released by Capricorn Records – better known for its Southern rock fare like the Allman Brothers and the Marshall Tucker Band – Captain Beyond signed by the label at the request of Duane Allman, an enthusiastic early supporter of the band.

Captain Beyond’s Lost & Found 1972-1973

It was Captain Beyond’s original demo tape, recorded in Rhino’s four-track home studio, which caught the ear of Mr. Allman (and, later, his manager and Capricorn big chief Phil Walden). Although the band re-created the songs from their demo tape for their debut, those original recordings were thought lost for all these years until resurfacing in Bobby Caldwell’s possession. Purple Pyramid’s release of these original demo tapes as Lost & Found 1972-1973 places Captain Beyond’s efforts in proper context, and showcases a band whose immense musical chemistry was obviously present from the very beginning. Unlike other band’s demos that were poorly-recorded and badly transferred onto CD for sale to the hardcore faithful here in the 21st century, the sound quality of the performances on Lost & Found 1972-1973 is pretty good considering the vintage of the tracks, a testament to the veteran performers’ studio experience.

Lost & Found 1972-1973 opens with the previously-unreleased “Uranus Highway,” an exhilarating psych-rock sojourn that “nobody has heard outside of the band” according to Caldwell. Why such an exciting, fully-formed song would fall through the cracks is a mystery, but Rhino’s wiry fretwork, the swirling rhythms, and Evans’ lofty vocals provide four minutes of brand-new excitement. The demo version of “I Can’t Feel Nothing (Part One)” is longer and, to these ears, sounds more confident than the studio version used on Captain Beyond. Rhino’s guitar licks dance and parry like an expert fencer, Evans’ semi-metallic vocals muscle their way out of the mix, and Caldwell’s percussive drumbeats slap your ears with the force of a sledge hammer. The song is just the entry point to the five-song suite that made up much of side two of the original album – tracks like the mesmerizing “As the Moon Speaks (To the Waves of the Sea),” with its shimmering instrumentation and eerie spoken-word passage, or “As The Moon Speaks (Return),” with its staccato Latin rhythms – are perfect showcases for the band’s instrumental virtuosity.

“Icarus” was originally written for singer Rod Evans, although it wasn’t recorded until 1977 with a different singer for the band’s Dawn Explosion album. Evans’ vocals compliment the song quite nicely, soaring along effortlessly on the waves of scorching guitar, cacophonic rhythms, scraps of hallucinogenic keyboards, and an overall intoxicating space-rock vibe. It’s a heavy trip, to be sure, and it probably should have been shoehorned somewhere onto the debut album. The demo take on “Raging River of Fear” is an out-of-control wildfire featuring Rhino’s bluesy, serpentine slide-guitar playing that is obviously inspired by Johnny Winter; the album version, suffice it to say, pales by comparison. The martial rhythms of “Myopic Void” provide a strong center for Evans’ psych-drenched vocals and Rhino’s otherworldly fretwork, the song kicking into overdrive with Caldwell’s explosive percussion and Dorman’s fluid bass lines.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Truth is, there were but a handful of bands making music as innovative as Captain Beyond during the sunrise years of the ‘70s. The American band Gypsy is the only one that readily comes to mind, and while they walked a similar neo-prog path as Captain Beyond, they incorporated more folk than jazz influences into their unique sound. Captain Beyond’s imaginative instrumentation and unique song construction set them apart from a crowded field of early 1970s hard rockers.

Captain Beyond’s reckless musical experimentation in the studio, combined with their electrifying live performances, earned the band a loyal, albeit small group of fans. Fellow travelers like Rush and King’s X have kept the musical spirit of the band alive for a subsequent generations of fans, and young newcomers jump on the bandwagon each passing year. Running a hair short of 30 minutes, the early band demos documented by Lost & Found 1972-1973 are nevertheless a real treat for Captain Beyond fans, and Dave Thompson’s knowledgeable liner notes offer important historical context. Lost & Found 1972-1973 preserves the unvarnished sound and fury of a band that knows they’ve stumbled upon an alchemical formula to create musical magic. Grade: A (Purple Pyramid Records, released June 2, 2017)

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Captain Beyond’s Lost & Found 1972-1973 

Book Review: Goldmine’s Essential Guide to Record Collecting by Dave Thompson (2017)

For better than 40 years now, Goldmine magazine has been the go-to publication for record collectors, music fanatics, and fellow travelers. Back in the pre-Internet good old days, the zine was an oversized behemoth constructed of durable newsprint, its pages jam-packed with ads from various vinyl vendors. Some were selling albums and 45s outright for a set cost while other advertisers ran auctions that required the interested party to send their bid by U.S. mail and wait, patiently, for a month (sometimes two) to find out if you were the lucky soul to win the auction and, by the way, where’s my money?

These Goldmine ads, often in migraine-inducing type sizes, provided a valuable education for those of us interested in the minutiae of obscure doo-wop singles, psychedelic rock albums, and other musical flotsam and jetsam. Each issue of the zine also featured well-written artist interviews and album reviews (a few of which I penned) that easily stood shoulder-to-shoulder in quality with mainstream music rags like Rolling Stone, Spin, and Creem, et al. Goldmine is still published monthly and while many of the auction advertisers have fled for Discogs or eBay, a few remain, and the zine’s music coverage is still top notch, featuring writers like my old buddy Martin Popoff, Gillian Gaar, Bill Kopp, Lee Zimmerman, and the ‘Mack Daddy’ of them all, Dave Thompson.

Goldmine’s Essential Guide to Record Collecting

In the interest of full disclosure, Thompson was briefly an editor of mine a number of years ago at an obscure Midwestern zine with a focus on, shall we say, the ‘seedier’ side of the music biz. That colors my opinion of his brilliance not a whit, and many other readers must agree. The man is prolific in a manner that puts even Mr. Popoff to shame, Thompson having written over 100 music-related books (several of which I’ve read); he’s also a well-respected pricing expert for a wide range of vinyl records, writing both The Standard Catalog of American Records and the Goldmine Jazz Album Price Guide. In other words, Thompson knows his stuff and he isn’t going to steer you wrong.

Thompson’s latest contribution to the record-collecting hobby/obsession is the nifty, informative Goldmine’s Essential Guide to Record Collecting. Now the Reverend, I’m not so much a collector as a ‘hunter and gatherer’…I’ve probably sold as many records and CDs as I currently own through the years, and my own reckless and eclectic musical tastes have caused me to constantly hone my collection to fit my mood at any given moment, resulting in a permanent library of a few thousand items. I’ve always been more into the music than the value of the medium, which is why I once sold a collectible promotional copy of a Bob Marley & the Wailers box set on eBay for $100+ and invested the money in several different Marley albums instead.

Addicted to Vinyl

I certainly understand the addictive qualities of record collecting, however, and with vinyl making a long overdue ‘comeback’ due to a generation of fresh-faced music fans, even the Reverend hasn’t been able to resist the lure of a recent Buzzcocks bootleg LP reissue, a Redd Kross rarities collection on gray vinyl, or almost anything from the Third Man Records “live” in the studio series. So while I’m an old hand at buying, selling, and trading records, I nevertheless found Thompson’s work on Goldmine’s Essential Guide to Record Collecting to be an interesting and informative read no matter one’s level of collecting knowledge. Thompson starts out with a couple of chapters on the birth and evolution of vinyl, ‘cause it always helps to know where you’ve been so you can tell where you’re going. A chapter on vinyl grading is essential to the hobby, and Thompson provides valuable examples of how condition can mess with the value of a record.

From this point, Thompson gets into the ‘meat and potatoes’ of the hobby, discussing the ever-collectible Beatles and Stones, dipping into jazz and box sets, and sojourning into the ancient past to talk about the almighty Elvis and other early-era rockers like Jerry Lee Lewis and Gene Vincent. Thompson hits many of the touchstones of the collectors’ community, artists like Bob Dylan and David Bowie and record labels like Motown, as well as providing a chapter on the highly-collectible and often pricey field of psychedelia. He spends much more time on disco than I certainly would have – who knew that old 12” disco biscuits were collectible – but Thompson redeems himself with a solid chapter on pub rock and punk. Chapters on the music of the ‘80s and classical music round out the guide, which is profusely-illustrated with artist photos, album covers, 45rpm picture sleeves, and poster art. Frequent sidebars offer a glimpse at current pricing on rarities like “rare blues from the shellac age” 78s and Elvis’s Sun Records releases and more.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Overall, the 240 pages of Goldmine’s Essential Guide to Record Collecting provide an informative primer for the veteran and newcomer alike. I do have a few minor complaints, however – classic blues music from the 1950s and ‘60s is given short shrift, as is old-school hip-hop, which is easily as popular with collectors as disco. An entire chapter on fan favorites like Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Fleetwood Mac, etc would have been nice – rabid fans of those artists will buy anything, and there’s certainly a lot to buy – but then the book would have run in excess of 300 pages, I suppose.

As it is, Goldmine’s Essential Guide to Record Collecting provides an excellent blueprint to the hobby, written in Thompson’s usual friendly but knowledgeable style. With Thompson’s considered advice and a pocket full of cash, one can put together an impressive and satisfying record collection in no time.  Grade: A- (Krause Publications, published June 29, 2017)

Buy the book from Amazon.com: Goldmine’s Essential Guide to Record Collecting by Dave Thompson

Link Wray’s S/T 1971 LP reissued on vinyl!

The legendary Link Wray hadn’t released an album in nearly eight years when a self-titled LP appeared on record store shelves in June 1971, released by Polydor Records. Featuring a stark photo of Wray clad in native Shawnee Indian garb on the front cover in honor of his Native American roots, the collection can best be characterized as what we’d call ‘Americana’ these days, the mostly-original songs an inspired blend of roots-rock, blues, country, and folk music.

On July 28th, 2017 Future Days Recordings – a Light In The Attic imprint – will reissue Wray’s Link Wray for the first time on vinyl since the early ‘70s on both standard black vinyl and as a limited, 400-copy edition on “Juke Box Mama Gold” wax. The album has been newly remastered, includes new liner notes by Chris Morris, and is packaged in a reproduction of the original die-cut album gatefold jacket.

Link Wray, the album, was recorded by the guitarist in a makeshift three-track studio slapped together in a chicken shack on his brother Ray’s property in rural Maryland that was dubbed ‘Wray’s Shack Three Track’. Wray was backed on the songs by pianists Bobby Howard and Bill Hodges and drummers Doug Wray and Steve Verroca, who co-wrote several songs and co-produced the album with Ray. Recording in as primitive of conditions as one could conceive, Wray was defiantly shrugging aside the slick production of contemporary records in favor of a raw, simpler sound.

Featuring Wray’s ramshackle vocals – he’d lost a lung to TB while serving during the Korean War – and his trademark high-flying fretwork, the album eschewed the guitar-driven instrumentals like “Rumble” and “Rawhide” on which he’d built his reputation in the 1950s and ‘60s. The move didn’t win Wray many new fans, and it alienated many of his old listeners. Nevertheless, the album has since been reconsidered as a minor classic of pioneering Americana music, with several semi-biographical songs penned by Wray like “Fire and Brimstone” and “Fallin’ Rain” later covered by artists as diverse as the Neville Brothers, Nick Cave, and Calexico.

To accompany the vinyl release of Link Wray, Light In The Attic is also distributing three other albums of a similar vintage by the guitarist that have been reissued by Tidal Waves Music. Also recorded at Wray’s Shack Three Track, 1971’s Mordicai Jones (a pseudonym for pianist Bobby Howard) and Beans and Fatback (released in ’73) are available from LITA as is 1972’s Be What You Want. All four vinyl albums are also available in a budget-minded bundle from the Light In The Attic Records website.

Walter Trout Summer 2017 tour dates

Walter Trout photo by Austin Hargave

In case you missed our post the other day, the almighty Walter Trout has a brand new album coming out on August 25th, 2017. Titled We’re All In This Together, the disc features all original songs from Walter’s skilled pen and a slew of guest performers that reads like a spinning Rolodex™ of blues-rock talent, including Joe Bonamassa, Warren Haynes, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and the Godfather of the scene, the revered John Mayall.

Before heading back to Europe for a run of shows, Trout recently launched a North American tour that runs into September in support of We’re All In This Together. Although we missed the first few dates, we have a list of all the rest of them, so if Walter and his hard-working band come anywhere near your hometown, you should really plan on checking him out in person. You’ll thank me later...

Walter Trout tour dates
7/08 @ Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River MA
7/09 @ Daryl’s House, Pawling NY
7/10 @ Maxwell’s, Hoboken NJ
7/12 @ B.B. King’s, New York NY
7/13 @ Bull Run, Shirley MA
7/14 @ Infinity Music Hall, Norwalk CT
7/15 @ Tupelo Music Hall, Derry NH
7/16 @ North Atlantic Blues Festival, Rockland ME
7/19 @ Blues On The Mall, Grand Rapids MI
7/20 @ Club Soda, Toledo OH
7/21 @ Legends, Chicago IL
7/22 @ Legends, Chicago IL
7/23 @ Shank Hall, Milwaukee WI
7/26 @ Chrome Lounge, Omaha NE
7/27 @ Famous Dave’s, Minneapolis MN
7/28 @ Fargo Blues Fesival, Fargo ND
7/29 @ Arnolds Park Amusement Park, Arnolds Park IA
7/30 @ Lefty’s Live Music, Des Moines IA
8/05 @ Bluespalooza, Mammoth Lakes CA
8/06 @ Mt. Baker R&B Festival, Deming WA
8/16 @ Ram’s Head, Annapolis MD
8/17 @ The Hamilton, Washington D.C.
8/18 @ Somers Point Concert Series, Somers Point NJ
8/19 @ Morristown Jazz & Blues Festival, Morristown NJ
8/20 @ Long’s Park Concert Series, Lancaster PA
8/22 @ Peter’s Players, Gravenhurst, Ontario CAN
8/23 @ Peter’s Players, Gravenhurst, Ontario CAN
8/25 @ Trois Rivieres En Blues, Trois Rivieres, Quebec CAN
8/26 @ North River Blues Festival, Marshfield MA
8/27 @ 2 Left Feet Blues Festival, Simsbury CT
8/30 @ Callahan’s, Auburn Hills MI
8/31 @ Beachland Ballroom, Cleveland OH
9/02 @ Peoria Blues & Heritage Festival, Peoria IL
9/07 @ Big Blues Bender, Las Vegas NV
9/08 @ Big Blues Bender, Las Vegas NV

CD Review: Carla Thomas's Stax Classics (2017)

Widely known as the “Queen of Memphis Soul,” singer Carla Thomas was born into Memphis music royalty. The daughter of local music institution Rufus Thomas – a popular and talented Bluff City deejay, comedian, and singer who recorded for labels like Chess, Sun, and Stax Records – Carla was one of three musical siblings, including singer Vaneese Thomas and keyboardist Marvell Thomas. A member of Memphis’ Teen Town Singers (which also once included Isaac Hayes), Thomas sang with the group from the age of ten until she graduated from high school.

At the age of eighteen, Thomas recorded her first single – a 1960 duet with her father titled “Cause I Love You” – released by producer Jim Stewart’s pre-Stax label Satellite Records. She would subsequently become one of the fledgling Stax label’s biggest stars, scoring some 18 R&B chart hits circa 1960-1969, occasionally crossing over to the pop charts and taking her place as arguably the best soul singer, male or female, that Memphis had to offer. The budget-priced Stax Classics offers up a dozen fine Thomas performances, mixing (most of) her chart hits with some obscure album tracks to showcase the underrated singer’s enormous voice and talent.

Carla Thomas’s Stax Classics

Carla Thomas’s Stax catalog comprises a mere six albums, but it was with those little 7” vinyl flapjacks where her talents truly shined. There were hard choices to be made, I’m sure, in what to include and what to exclude when piecing together Thomas’s Stax Classics collection, but in the end the producers assembled a fairly representative (and entertaining) twelve tracks. Thomas’s Stax Classics set opens with “B-A-B-Y,” the singer’s biggest and most enduring hit (#3 R&B, #14 Pop), and a perfect vocal showcase. There’s an innocence and youthful energy at play on the side (Thomas would have been only 24 years old when it was released), but also a knowing, sensual purr that is emphasized by the judicious use of Stax’s horn players.

Thomas and Otis Redding were the biggest-selling female and male artists on the label’s roster so somebody (OK, probably Stax main man Jim Stewart) had the bright idea of having the two talented singers wax an album of duets like those which Motown’s Marvin Gaye had so much success with at the time. “Tramp” was a Top 30 hit single off the 1967 album King & Queen, the song a lively call-and-response between the two singers that is playfully argumentative as Thomas and Redding talk-sing a humorous, melodramatic tale. Sadly, Stax Classics doesn’t include either of the other two Thomas/Redding hits from that album (including a scorching take on “Knock On Wood”), but since the label is reissuing King & Queen on vinyl this summer, I’ll forgive them.

Carla & Rufus Thomas

The collection also includes “Cause I Love You,” Thomas’s duet recorded with her father Rufus which didn’t chart, but is a gem nonetheless. The teenaged Carla’s soulful vocals were nearly fully-formed and offer a sweet counterpoint to her dad’s gruff but affectionate singing. The song doesn’t feature a strong melodic hook, but it does offer a fine foot-shuffling rhythmic line. “I Like What You’re Doing (To Me)” is one of Thomas’s most underrated releases, the 1969 single displaying a fuller range of the singer’s voice and her ability to inject emotion into even the most rote of lyrics. The ballad “Comfort Me” went absolutely nowhere when released in 1965 tho’ I can’t imagine why. Standing proudly on the fine line between classic R&B and pop-influenced early rock ‘n’ roll, Thomas delivers a wonderful vocal performance amidst the crooning backing vocal harmonies and swells of instrumentation.

The Isaac Hayes/David Porter collaboration “When Tomorrow Comes” is another such soul-pop hybrid with lush instrumentation supporting Thomas’s soaring vocals. Although the song crept onto the pop chart at #99 in 1967, it could have been a huge hit if it had received significant airplay on mainstream AM radio. Released later that year, “Pick Up the Pieces” is what we would consider “classic soul” these days, Thomas knocking out another powerful mid-tempo ballad, her vocals flying high above crescendos of orchestration and an undeniable melody. An obscure album track from 1965, “I’ve Got No Time To Lose” shows Carla in Irma Thomas (no relation) mode, belting out the lyrics with strength and feeling that fuses contemporary ‘60s soul with gospel fervor. Thomas’s edition of Stax Classics closes out with the 1969 track “I Play For Keeps,” the song’s overall vibe similar, musically, to the sound that the Fifth Dimension was scoring hits with at the time. Strip away all of the gratuitous strings and instrumentation, though, and you’ll find a lovely soul-pop performance with Thomas’s magnificent voice front and center.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

After the release of her final Stax album, 1971’s Love Means… and an appearance in the 1972 Wattstax film, Thomas largely turned her energy away from chasing hits and towards improving her community. Although the singer toured every now and then during the 1980s, her work with the “Artists in the Schools” program allowed her to inspire Memphis teenagers, earning Thomas a prestigious ‘Pioneer Award’ from the Rhythm & Blues Foundation, an honor that placed the singer in the company of fellow R&B and soul legends like James Brown and Solomon Burke.

Carla Thomas’s Stax Classics entry is one of the strongest in the series, showcasing the singer’s dynamic voice and charisma over the course of a dozen songs. However, I’ve knocked a point off the grade for one major omission – the lack of Thomas’s first big hit, 1960’s “Gee Whiz (Look At His Eyes),” which was released by Stewart’s Satellite Records label and distributed by Atlantic Records. Peaking at #5 on the R&B chart and #10 pop, the song helped put Thomas on the map and led directly to her subsequent string of hits for the Stax label. If you can include “Cause I Love You,” which is of a similar vintage, then you have to include “Gee Whiz.” Nevertheless, Thomas’s Stax Classics is a treasure of mid-to-late ‘60s soul and pop performances that is available on CD for a pittance. The Rev sez “check it out!” Grade: B+ (Stax Records, released May 19, 2017)

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Carla Thomas’s Stax Classics

CD Preview: Walter Trout’s We’re All In This Together

Blues-rock guitarist Walter Trout has been mighty busy since undergoing a life-saving liver transplant in late 2013. Whereas lesser musicians might have been tempted to hang up their running shoes, Trout was back on the road in early 2015 and has been touring ever since, performing with the fervor and energy of a man half his age. Somewhere along the way, Walter found time to chronicle his dance with the reaper on the brutally honest and musically-powerful 2015 album Battle Scars. He followed it up in 2016 with the equally impressive concert LP Alive In Amsterdam, a testament to his renewed effort as an ambassador for the blues.

I have the feeling that the talented Mr. Trout is really just getting started…on August 25th, 2017 Provogue Records will release the guitarist’s new studio album, We’re All In This Together, his 26th recording to date. With nearly a half-century of performing under his belt, Trout takes nothing for granted, and We’re All In This Together is filled with guest appearances from Walter’s friends and former bandmates like John Mayall, Joe Bonamassa, Sonny Landreth, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Joe Louis Walker, Charlie Musselwhite, Edgar Winter, Mike Zito, and others. The album also showcases the talents of Trout’s son Jon, a talented string-bender in his own right who is beginning to give his old man a run for his money.

Unlike Trout’s previous (and critically-acclaimed) cameo-filled album, 2006’s Full Circle, the sequel-of-sorts We’re All In This Together pays tribute to his friends and collaborators as Trout wrote an original song for each one of his fourteen special guests to perform on. The material is less heavy in nature than his previous studio album, which is to be expected as Trout moves away from his trial by fire with a renewed sense of purpose. “Now was the right time for this record,” Trout says in a press release for the new album. “Battle Scars was such an intense piece of work, written with tears coming down my face. I needed a break from that, to do something fun and light-hearted. This album was joyous for me.”

Trout reunites with friends from the recent all-star Supersonic Blues Machine project, with six-string talents Warren Hayes, Robben Ford, and Eric Gales all contributing to We’re All In This Together. It wouldn’t be a Walter Trout album without the larger-than-life presence of British blues legend John Mayall, who enlisted the guitarist into his Bluesbreakers band way back in 1985. Mayall displays his underrated harp skills on “Blues For Jimmy T.” Says Trout, “am I proud to call myself a former Bluesbreaker? Yeah, of course. What a credential. That is a very exclusive club, and I know that when I’m gone, that’s gonna be one of the big things that they’ll remember me for: that I was a Bluesbreaker for five years.”

Much of We’re All In This Together was created with modern, cutting-edge recording technology, many of Trout’s collaborators sending in their contributions to be incorporated with performances by Trout and his band – keyboardist Sammy Avila, bassist Johnny Griparic, and drummer Mike Leasure – who appear on every track. Producer Eric Corne put together a seamless mix that sounds electrifyingly live in the studio. Says Trout, “it’s very hard to tell we’re not in the studio together. If you listen to the Warren Haynes track, when we get into that guitar conversation on the end – it sounds like we’re looking each other right in the face, y’know?” Prog-rock musicians have been working this way for years and creating innovative and entertaining albums, so why not blues musicians?

We’re All In This Together promises to represent another milestone in a career littered with such. With 25+ years as a solo artist under his belt, Trout is still rockin’ and shooting for the stars, winning over new fans one live show at a time. “I’m 66 years old,” says Trout, “but I feel like I’m in the best years of my life right now. I feel better than I have in years physically. I have more energy. I have a whole different appreciation of being alive, of the world, of my family, of my career. I want life to be exciting and celebratory. I want to dig in. I want to grab life by the balls and not let go...”

Buy the album from Amazon.com: Walter Trout’s We’re All In This Together

We’re All In This Together track listing:
1. Gonna Hurt Like Hell (featuring Kenny Wayne Shepherd)
2. Ain’t Goin’ Back (featuring Sonny Landreth)
3. The Other Side of the Pillow (featuring Charlie Musselwhite)
4. She Listens To the Blackbird Song (featuring Mike Zito)
5. Mr. Davis (featuring Robben Ford)
6. The Sky Is Crying (featuring Warren Haynes)
7. Somebody Goin’ Down (featuring Eric Gales)
8. She Steals My Heart Away (featuring Edgar Winter)
9. Crash and Burn (featuring Joe Louis Walker)
10. Too Much To Carry (featuring John Nemeth)
11. Do You Still See Me At All (featuring Jon Trout)
12. Got Nothin’ Left (featuring Randy Bachman)
13. Blues For Jimmy T. (featuring John Mayall)
14. We’re All In This Together (featuring Joe Bonamassa)

Also on That Devil Music:
Walter Trout - Battle Scars CD review
John Mayall - Talk About That CD review
Supersonic Blues Machine - West of Flushing, South of Frisco CD review

CD Review: Walter Trout's Battle Scars (2015)

Here’s the CliffsNotes version of the Walter Trout saga: the beloved blues-rock guitarist was to spend much of 2014 taking a victory lap in honor of the 25th anniversary of his solo career. Instead, he was fighting like hell just to exist before and after his life-saving liver transplant. Before illness had sidelined him in late 2013, he recorded The Blues Came Callin’, a powerful twelve-song celebration of life in the face of mortality. After much struggle, pain, and prayer, the guitarist has come out the other side a wiser, but no less determined man.

After shaking off the ring rust by getting back on stage and doing what he loves best, Trout took a new batch of songs into the studio and recorded Battle Scars. No less potent a set than The Blues Came Callin’, the new album doesn’t stray far from the familiar, guitar-driven blues-rock blueprint that Trout has followed for a couple of decades. What is new here is that Trout, unlike Robert Johnson, has shaken the hellhounds from his trail for a second chance at life.

Battle Scars opens with the incredible “Almost Gone,” as haunting a song as any Delta bluesman ever imagined. Fueled by Trout’s dark, mesmerizing fretwork – which runs like the river Styx beneath his somber vocals – this is the lyrical moment of truth, the singer full of regret but icily staring down the Reaper. The dramatic, tragic “Omaha” offers another jackhammer performance, as stark as a dark alleyway, but is balanced by Trout with “Please Take Me Home,” a beautiful, heartfelt ballad for his wife, who stood by his side during the ordeal.

By the time the guitarist gets to the acoustic “Gonna Live Again,” the listener has taken an emotional roller-coaster ride with this underrated songwriter, the song’s fluid melody and melancholy guitar strum a declaration of a bittersweet sort of optimism.  Battle Scars is Trout’s Inferno, a tale of redemption and rebirth that doesn’t shy away from reality but rings loudly with hope…it’s also the best album, in all facets, that Trout has ever recorded. Here’s to another 25 years! (Provogue Records, released October 23, 2015)

Reprinted courtesy of Blues Music Magazine

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Walter Trout’s Battle Scars

Bootleg Rodeo: Tom Petty, Stephen Stills & Manassas, Neil Young

#2 - July 2017

Thanks to the vagaries created by loopholes in international copyright law, it seems that live music from the 1970s – particularly FM radio broadcasts – are fair game for release on CD by dodgy European labels. The situation is a godsend for rock ‘n’ roll fans, who now have access to budget recordings by their favorite artists that were only previously available as higher-priced bootleg titles.

Not all of these so-called “copyright gap” releases are worth your time and money, however, which is where That Devil Music’s “Bootleg Rodeo” comes into play. This monthly (give or take) column aims to separate the wheat from the chaff and let you know which of these recordings deserve a place in your collection and which should have been left to collect dust in a closet somewhere. Get ‘em while you can, kiddies, ‘cause one never knows when copyright treaties will be revised and the availability of these albums disappears.

For this sophomore “Bootleg Rodeo” column the Rev has chosen to round up recently-released live CDs from Neil Young, Tom Petty, and Stephen Stills and Manassas, with links to buy ‘em from Amazon.com.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers – Psychotic Reaction (Zip City Records)
Of a later vintage than the mighty fine Petty set we previously reviewed, Psychotic Reaction captures an FM radio broadcast of a live November 1991 Heartbreakers performance in Oakland, California. The Heartbreakers has previously gone on hiatus when Petty hooked up with his idols Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Roy Orbison as a member of the erstwhile ‘supergroup’ the Traveling Wilburys, appearing on albums by the band in 1988 and 1990. In between, working with his Wilburys bandmate Jeff Lynne and the Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell, Petty recorded his first solo album, 1989’s Full Moon Fever.

Petty and the Heartbreakers reunited in 1991 to record Into the Great Wide Open with Lynne co-producing, after which the band hit the road for a 48-date North American tour from which this recording is taken. Psychotic Reaction is a lengthy (73min) collection of sixteen tracks that includes older tunes like “Refugee,” and “Here Comes My Girl” alongside new Heartbreakers’ jams like “King’s Highway,” “Into the Great Wide Open,” and “Learning To Fly.” Throw in live versions of Petty solo tunes like “Free Fallin’,” “I Won’t Back Down,” and “Runnin’ Down A Dream” and you have a totally electrifying set. Sound quality is better than an FM broadcast should be. Previously released on CD-R and widely traded in taping circles, Psychotic Reaction gets its name from the band’s raucous reading of the classic Count Five song featuring Petty’s ramshackle harmonica, Campbell’s scorching fretwork, and Benmont Tench’s undeniably foot-shufflin’ keyboards. The Rev’s recommendation: buy it!

Stephen Stills & Manassas – Live Treasure (Go Faster Records)
This might be the CD find of the month – provided that you’re a fan of Stephen Stills and Manassas, of course – Live Treasure a budget-priced two-disc set capturing a March 1972 performance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam that was broadcast on FM radio. After releasing two well-received solo albums in the span of a roughly nine months circa 1970-71, Stills put together Manassas with former Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers multi-instrumentalist Chris Hillman, later recruiting Crosby, Stills & Nash drummer Dallas Taylor, pedal steel wizard Al Perkins (Flying Burrito Brothers), keyboardist Paul Harris, and percussionist Joe Lala (Blues Image). Manassas would release its self-titled debut in April 1972 (the label flogging it as “Stephen Stills’ Manassas”), which means that Live Treasure documents the band still knocking the rough edges off their (then) unique blend of rock, country, and blues music – what we’d call ‘roots-rock’ or “Americana’ these days.

Among the 29 songs and better than two hours of music you’ll find on Live Treasure are a bunch of songs from Stills’ solo albums, including gems like “Do For the Others,” “Change Partners,” and the hit “Love the One You’re With” as well as tracks from the then-forthcoming Manassas album like “Bound To Fall,” “Don’t Look At My Shadow,” and “Johnny’s Garden.” There are also performances of a couple of outliers like “Hot Burrito #2” from the Flying Burrito Brothers’ Gilded Palace of Sin album and Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth.” The band displays a complex musical dynamic here, and Stills’ fretwork is simply stunning on songs like “Blues Man.” The sound quality on Live Treasure is spotty, but don’t believe the negative reviews on Amazon – although not as impressive a recording as, say, the aforementioned Tom Petty album, it’s not as bad as your garden variety bootleg, either; the overall fine band performance documented on these two discs more than makes up for the album’s sonic flaws. The Rev’s recommendation: buy it!        

Neil Young – Bottom Line 1974 (Gold Fish Records)
Rock ‘n’ Roll legend Neil Young has released a number of classic live recordings under the banner of his “archive series” over the past few years, but this often-bootlegged performance seems to have been overlooked as of this date. Recorded at New York City’s storied Bottom Line club in May 1974, the album showcases Young performing in a solo acoustic setting. As legend has it, Young was in the audience that night for a performance by the talented Ry Cooder and, so moved was he that Young jumped onstage and proceeded to knock out a stellar eleven-song set clocking in at over an hour.

Although the Gold Fish Records release of Bottom Line 1974 states that it was taken from an FM radio broadcast, notes on Young’s own website say that it’s an audience recording. My educated ears say that it probably falls in between – maybe a soundboard recording with some bleed through from the audience – but there’s no denying the strength and passion of Young’s performance here. Young debuts five entirely new songs and a total of ten unreleased songs from future albums like On the Beach (“Ambulance Blues,” “Revolution Blues,” “Motion Pictures,” “On The Beach”), Tonight’s The Night (“Roll Another Number For The Road”), and Zuma (“Pardon My Heart”). Young draws upon not only his own songbook but also material like “Long May You Run,” from his future (1976) collaboration with Stephen Stills, and Buffalo Springfield’s “Flying On the Ground Is Wrong.” A charming display of Young’s talents, Bottom Line 1974 is an obscure but important addition to the artist’s catalog. The Rev’s recommendation: buy it, or wait for Neil to release a legit version…  

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Bootleg Rodeo #1 - Tom Petty, Carlos Santana/John Lee Hooker, George Thorogood & the Destroyers

Bash & Pop’s Friday Night Is Killing Me reissued

When the Replacements – arguably the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in history – broke up in 1991, the band’s guitarist Tommy Stinson didn’t want to give up on playing in a group. Stinson convinced Replacements’ drummer Steve Foley to join his new outfit, along with his brother Kevin Foley on bass and guitarist Steve Brantseg, the foursome becoming known as Bash & Pop.

Working with producer Don Smith (Cracker, Keith Richards) and with guest appearances by musicians like the Heartbreakers’ Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell and Wire Train’s Jeff Trott, Bash & Pop recorded Friday Night Is Killing Me. Released in 1993, the album received modest critical acclaim for its energetic albeit ramshackle collection of guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll. Although it paled in comparison with the Replacements’ best work, Friday Night Is Killing Me has since grown in stature, even as the CD has been out of print for over 20 years.

That was it for Bash & Pop for nearly a quarter-century until Stinson put together a new band line-up with friends like Luther Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars and Steve Selvidge of the Hold Steady and recorded the album Anything Could Happen, released earlier this year. You can’t escape the past, though, and as Stinson takes Bash & Pop on the road in support of Anything Could Happen, interest in the band’s vintage debut album has only grown, causing the price of buying a used copy of the CD to inch ever upwards.

On September 8th, 2017 the esteemed archive label Omnivore Recordings will reissue Friday Night Is Killing Me as a deluxe two-disc set, adding an 18-track bonus disc with rare singles, home demos, and B-sides to go along with the 11-track original album. The second disc offers 15 previously-unreleased songs as well as rarities like “Making Me Sick,” Bash & Pop’s musical contribution to director Kevin Smith’s 1994 cult film Clerks. The reissue was produced by the Replacements’ former manager Peter Jesperson and Omnivore’s Grammy® Award-winning Cheryl Pawelski and was mastered by the band’s bassist, Justin Perkins. Friday Night Is Killing Me also features rare photos and a new essay by writer Bob Mehr, author of the best-selling band bio Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements.

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Bash & Pop's Friday Night Is Killing Me