Issue 18-31 August 1, 2024 (2024)

Celso Salim & Darryl Carriere –About Time

Wide Tracks Recordings

www.celsosalim.com

10 songs – 47 minutes

Despite making music together for over 20 years, About Time is the first collaborative effort from the Brazilian guitarist, Celso Salim, and the Californian harmonica player, Darryl Carriere, and it’s a total joy.

The album features 10 original compositions, all written in a classic blues style and played vigor, verve and no little technical virtuosity. Opening with “BBQ”, which has one foot in straight blues and one in serious soul, Salim and Carriere use the concept of a barbecue as a lyrical metaphor for their relationship with a woman. Things really get cooking with the next number, “Sweet Thing”, a riotous West Coast swing number with some stunning guitar from Salim.

Salim and Carriere are both masters of their instruments, but also play delightfully together, exhibiting deep chemistry but never treading on each other’s musical toes. They share lead vocals, often harmonizing together, and are backed superbly by Mike Hightower on bass and vocals and David Kida on drums and percussion. Hightower also produced the album together with Salim.

Carriere often uses his harp to fix the initial melody of a song, as on the funky “Please Stop” or on “Get Along”, whilst then weaving between the vocal lines. “Please Stop” features some glittering electric slide guitar from Salim, while he whips out a wah for the latter track. Solos are shared roughly equally, and on tracks like the upbeat “Sadie” it’s a joy to hear the musicians interact and play off each other.

Carriere takes the majority of the lead vocals, with Salim fronting on three tracks. Both have excellent, road-worn, emotionally connected voices. Carriere’s reading of the slow blues, “In Your Arms”, is particularly affecting. On the Dobro-driven “With My Friends”, the pair harmonize to great effect.

The duo co-wrote all the songs on About Time other than the acoustic country blues of “Here With You”, which is a solo Salim effort. And the songs stay totally true to the blues tradition whilst in the main avoiding the traditional 12-bar blues structure. The uptown Chicago shuffle of “Love On A Shelf” is a fine example of how to write a song that is totally a blues song but which uses a very unusual structure.

About Time finishes with another acoustic track, “Make You Mine”, that features only vocals, guitar and harmonica and gives Carriere the opportunity to lay down one of his best solos on the album.

The only shame about the album is that it’s so short (just over three-quarters of an hour). Then again, it does make the listener eagerly look forward to the next one.

Recorded at Wide Tracks Noho Studio, About Time is an absolute gem of a modern blues recording. Highly recommended.

Reviewer Rhys “Lightnin'” Williams plays guitar in a blues band based in Cambridge, England. He also has a day gig as a lawyer.

Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee – Live from the Ash Grove

Liberation Hall Records LIB-5038

www.liberationhall.com

11 songs – 41 minutes

From the onset of forming a musical partnership in the early ’40s to their breakup about 40 years later, when they were among the first class to receive honors from the National Endowment for the Arts, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were true superstars in the world of Piedmont blues.

Harp player Sonny and guitarist Brownie rarely spoke to one another in real life in the second half of their careers, feuded frequently and broke up temporarily on occasion over some long-forgotten falling-out, but they were at the absolute height of their when most of this set was captured at the legendary Ash Grove music club in Los Angeles. And even though strained, their relationship on stage was as intimate and loving as any successful longtime union can be.

Born in Durham, N.C., where he learned how to play from his father as a child, Sonny was completely blind for most of his life after separate accidents at age five and 16 that caused permanent damage to each eye. No longer able to work the family farm, he turned to music, eventually forming a partnership with guitarist Blind Boy Fuller and played at Carnegie Hall in 1938 at the first From Spirituals to Swing concert, which introduced the blues to a white world. He also appeared on Broadway in 1947 as part of the original cast of Finian’s Rainbow.

Raised in Kingsport, Tenn., where he contracted polio at age four, which incapacitated his right leg, Brownie spent most of his youth in the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet and eventually learned how to walk again after an operation funded by the March of Dimes. He eventually moved on to the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, also befriended Fuller and formed a partnership in New York with Terry about a year after Blind Boy died.

The relationship endured until 1980, six years prior to Sonny’s passing. And when asked if he’d attend the funeral, Brownie – who remained active until his demise in 1996 — said he’d go only to “make sure that he’s dead.” Despite their animosity, there’s no doubt that the 11 tracks here – the first nine of which were recorded in 1973 and never previously released — will leave you smiling.

The set’s chockful of Sonny’s powerful, trademark whoops and runs on the reeds and Brownie’s tasty fretwork. Already elder statesmen in the blues world, they trade vocal leads and chatter warmly with each other and the enthusiastic audience throughout as they deliver some of the most enduring tunes in blues history.

First recorded in 1924 and one of the earliest of azure hits, “Trouble in Mind” opens the action with Sonny and Brownie sharing the mic as they optimistically state that they’re going to walk their blues away. Terry’s lilting harp runs power the action throughout. A minute-long spoken-word track follows Terry jovially recounts his time on the Great White Way prior to the duo cover his original, “Hootin’ the Blues,” a number he played nightly in the play for two-and-a-half years. McGhee’s propulsive fretwork shines beneath the vocals and his partner’s whoops are the star of the show.

The action flows effortlessly into “Blowin’ the Fuses,” a sweet original that gives both stars space to work out. Brownie’s powerful baritone commands the room as he delivers the self-penned “Life’s a Gamble” while Sonny provides honeyed support throughout. The highlight is a cautionary spoken-word memory mid-tune. And he uses the same technique as the opener for the sexually charged “(I Gotta Look) Up Under Your Hood,” which follows. After repairing the lady’s car, he insists she’s got other problems that have to be satisfied.

The music lightens as the duo launch into “My Father’s Words,” which finds Brownie finally understanding the mysterious meanings about life that his dad relayed to him in his youth. First recorded in 1905, the traditional – and sprightly — “Midnight Special” finds Terry taking the lead with McGhee adding call-and-response. The message about traveling continues in the medium-fast “Packin’ Up Gettin’ Ready to Go” to conclude the 1973 portion of the set.

“Baby, I Got My Mind Off You” and “C’mon If You’re Comin’,” which bring the disc to a close, are songs born at the dawn of the blues era and were recorded eight years earlier. They receive more formal treatment from the duo, but they’re welcome additions nonetheless.

Want a taste of what the REAL blues is? As someone who saw Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee in person, I can firmly state: You’ll never hear anything more REAL than this. It’s great!

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Marty Gunther has lived a blessed life. Now based out of Mason, Ohio, his first experience with live music came at the feet of the first generation of blues legends at the Newport Folk Festivals in the 1960s. A former member of the Chicago blues community, he’s a professional journalist and blues harmonica player who co-founded the Nucklebusters, one of the hardest working bands in South Florida.

Ping Rose –Conjure Man

Independent Release

www.pingroseplays.com

9 Tracks – 40 minutes

Ping Rose is a singer and guitarist from Memphis. He started playing professionally after graduating from high school in 2006. He also started teaching music while attending college. Upon graduating college, he continued playing in Memphis, but also moved into Nashville with his band The Anti Heroes. He got gigs playing in the B.B. King Club room on three separate cruise ships. He cites a wide array of musical influences ranging from Jimi Hendrix, George Benson, B.B. King, Jerry Reed and Prince and from alternative rock groups like The Cure and Smashing Pumpkins. In concert, those influences surface as he can easily switch from blues, jazz, rock and R&B. This is his second album release.

The album opens with a rousing instrumental, “Cloverhill Stomp” featuring Ping’s slide guitar. “Don’t Drink Me Dry” kicks off with some excellent guitar runs, then Ping moves into a smooth groove as he tells her to “love me baby” and “scratch me baby, up and down my leg”. The title song is a slow blues song with some backing keyboards and some jazzy guitar as he declares “I’m the one who walks the earth, I’m the one who brings the whole world to its knees, I’m the one who wakes the wind with a wave of my hand”.

On “Should I”, he says “I want to look you in the eye, and tell you I love you”, another jazzy R&B styled song with horns (perhaps synthesized). “Salty” features an organ lead and some smooth guitar work, as he notes “that you got my blood pressure up, and my ears making a ringing sound” but further states “she is rotten to the core”. He warns to be “Careful What You Wish For” in a funky vocal and some carefully played jazz guitar.

On “Darkness”, he asks her to “release your grip on me and let me out from under what your darkness brings”. His woman trouble continues as he does not have “Much Left to Lose” and cites “I woke up early in the morning hoping the day was not my fuse and lost so much over that woman, don’t have much left to lose”. The song lets him demonstrate some excellent, finger-picking style on an acoustic guitar. He closes the album with another instrumental “The Tail End” with some very jazzy keyboard work over a deep bass run and driving hand claps.

Ping’s vocals are very smooth and frequently reminds me of Stevie Wonder. As described, much of the performance is in a jazz mode and R&B. If you are seeking old school blues, this is not your album. But his sound is modern and pleasant and certainly worth a listen.

Reviewer John Sacksteder is a retired civil engineer in Louisville, Kentucky who has a lifelong love of music, particularly the blues. He is currently the Editor of the Kentuckiana Blues Society’s monthly newsletter.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds – Struck Down

Stony Plain Records SPCD1495

www.fabulousthunderbirds.com

10 songs – 36 minutes

Since their foundation at the legendary Antone’s in Austin in 1974, The Fabulous Thunderbirds have endured under the direction of harp player Kim Wilson as one of the best bands in America. And they celebrate their 50th anniversary with this disc. It’s a star-studded effort that’s as contemporary as any album they’ve done yet.

Sure, Jimmie Vaughan, Keith Ferguson, Duke Robillard, Gene Taylor, Kid Ramos, Willie Campbell, Jimi Bott, Richard Innes, Kirk Fletcher, Nick Curran and a host of others are no longer in the lineup, but Kim’s current crew is as tight as a band can get with Johnny Moeller on guitar, Bob Welsh on keys and guitar, Rudy Albin Petschauer on percussion and Steven Kirsty doubling on saxophone and bass.

Recorded in New Jersey and Hamilton, Ont., this album came about after Canadian six-string giant Steve Strongman approached Wilson in the hope of paring up to write some tunes. Their chemistry proved so potent, Kim says, that they’d composed five songs in the first three days and 12 more in the three days that followed. Ten of those compositions populate this album, which includes fretwork from Steve on eight of the cuts.

Guest appearances from a host of heavyweights makes the CD even more special. Both Bonnie Raitt, Keb’ Mo’ and Billy Gibbons contribute guitar and vocals, Terrance Simien adds accordion and washboard and Mick Fleetwood sits in on drums, too. Add Taj Mahal’s voice, guitar from Elvin Bishop and Dean Shott, background vocals from Chris Ayries and percussion from Rob Szabo and you’ve got something special.

Propelled by Strongman’s lead, “Struck Down by the Blues” as Kim describes why he’s walked an azure path for 50-plus years. “I haven’t lived in a shotgun shack, but I’ve missed a few meals,” he sings, “talk about down-and-out…I know just how that feels.” When the blues hit him, that was all she wrote. The powerful shuffle supporting the song comes with a traditional, yet modern feel.

“Don’t Make No Sense” delivers plenty of Gulf Coast appeal with Terrance in the mix and Wilson declaring his undying love for a lady, but his exasperation about the way she’s rejecting his affection. “Payback Time” follows with Billy on board. It’s a clever piece that any adult can understand: Life’s a free ride in our youth and we have to enjoy it when we can because we have to pay for it once we’re grown.

“Nothing in Rambling” is a country blues and much, much more. Keb’s on the axe and mic to open before Bonnie, Taj and Mick join in with Kim’s harp shining throughout. The vocalists describe moving from place to place and having the urge to marry and settle down, but trouble abounds. The band shifts to an urban sound for “Won’t Give Up,” a rapid-fire shuffle about trying to overcome poverty, afternoon drinking and more. But the emotion-packed ballad, “The Hard Way,” which follows, complains about life being so hard that when it gets easy – something that happens from time to time — the singer admits he doesn’t know what to do.

The shuffle, “Whatcha Do to Me,” features Elvin and explodes from the jump as it describes the effects a woman has on her man every time she’s close by. It flows into “I’ve Got Eyes,” which keeps the subject going, before the uptempo “That’s Cold” announces the end of the relationship and the slow-and-easy, two-step pleaser, “Sideline,” stresses the need to keep in the action to close.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds have released dozens of albums in the past, but this one might just be their best!

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Marty Gunther has lived a blessed life. Now based out of Mason, Ohio, his first experience with live music came at the feet of the first generation of blues legends at the Newport Folk Festivals in the 1960s. A former member of the Chicago blues community, he’s a professional journalist and blues harmonica player who co-founded the Nucklebusters, one of the hardest working bands in South Florida.

A multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter, Nathan James is one of those artists who flies under the radar for many blues listeners. That is a shame, as he is a superb guitar player as evidenced by his efforts on his own albums and releases by his friend, the late James Harman. While his music covers a broad range, it is all steeped in the blues traditions.

Born in a small town in rural California, James started working in the family business as a teenager, selling plants out of several greenhouses. The money he earned went to good use.

“Where I grew up, there wasn’t much to do, so teenagers would either got in trouble or they would get creative, going to work right away, which I did, and that’s the only other job besides music I’ve ever had. I was always into art, and music kind of came natural when I got my first guitar at 13 years old. I quickly learned what blues was from the guitar teacher that I had for about six months. I’d heard blues before, but I didn’t know what it was. Basically I was fortunate to get into something productive instead of getting in trouble like some other kids that grew up where I was.

“I worked there for a little while up until I graduated, as I was motivated to earn money, and some of that money went into buying a guitar here or there. The rest went towards getting my first vehicle so I could get out of town and go see music at clubs, even though I wasn’t old enough to get into them. That little grown up job at the family business enabled me to do that while teaching me something that I think all kids should learn, what it means to work for something you want, and I applied that to my own music business. Once I started playing music, I had already learned you the value of working for something, and you sure got to work for every little piece of the crumbs you get in the music business. Some people get it handed to them, but not me.”

Both of his grandmothers played piano. One of them had a career as a country singer in the 1960s. There was a uncle who played guitar, but initially, James was thinking of heading in a different direction.

“I actually wanted a bass before guitar. I asked my parents for one at Christmas time one year, but they got me a guitar instead. But I’m glad they did because bass was pretty easy to pick up after I learned guitar. I was just kind of drawn to the rhythmic aspect of guitar. I’m a real rhythmic player more than anything. I don’t really care for much lead guitar shredding kind of stuff whatsoever. I’ll take a solo, but I’m more of a rhythmic guy, and I think that I kind of connected with the country blues because of that.

Once he graduated high school, James was ready to embark on a music career. His parents had college in mind.

“There was no question of whether to go to college or anything like that. My parents were very supportive, and I was pretty much on my own by the age of 18 anyway. I was very focused on knowing what I wanted to do for a living, playing out in public with professional or semi-professional musicians right when I was 16 years old. There was a plan in my head. I didn’t have any other distractions, no girlfriends or anything like that at the time. My grades in school started to fall pretty badly once I knew that I wanted to play guitar for a living, but at least I still graduated, just barely.

“Right out of high school I was playing with some local harmonica players, particularly Billy Watson, the first guy to hire me. Almost immediately after that I got asked to play with the Jamie Wood Band, with Johnny Rover on harmonica. Also, the great Johnny Dyer hired me to be his guitar player. It all just happened real quickly. And then while I was playing with Johnny Dyer, I think James Harman saw me.

“I already knew about him because one of his old guitar players, Robbie Eason, I went to high school with. Robbie put in a good word for me to play with James after he quit, so he gets a lot of credit for getting me hooked up with Harman. It was just kind of a firestorm of everything. If there’s ever any luck in music, I guess mine was just being at the right place at the right time when I first started, which led to joining Harman’s band when I was 19 years old. Playing with harmonica players kind of became my specialty.

After a couple of years on the road, James decided to leave Harman’s band. He was ready to pursue a solo career, and Harman was winding down his days of being on tour much of the time.

“I wanted to play country blues. By that time, I had learned the whole depth of the American music by traveling around with Harman. We’d listen to all these records on the road. I really heavily got interested in the real old timey stuff, acoustic finger picking stuff.

“When Harman switched to doing mostly just local shows, I was asked to play with him again, from then on up until he passed away. So to be completely technical, I did quit the band for a little while there to get my solo career started, which was the wise decision, because that’s pretty much what’s helped me make a living, perform solo and also lead a group. There’s like 20 something years we had together. Harman took me to a lot of great places around the world. It helped my career tremendously and stylistically, he was a huge influence on me trying to be a songwriter.

“I say “try to be” because I don’t consider myself a natural songwriter compared to somebody like Harman. That’s what he lived for, writing songs. And up until he died, he was writing, numerous songs a day, lyrics. We did a little bit of recording, not as much as I would have liked to, looking back. We started to get a little stockpile of recordings here and there.

“When the pandemic hit, we started doing these live streams from my house, which I was able to record the audio and the video at the same time with real high quality audio recording that could be mixed later on if he wanted to make a record out of it. But then James got sick with cancer. He wasn’t able to perform. He lost his voice. We started planning his next album release before he died. But he went pretty quickly. At least I had a somewhat of a framework of an album that he wanted to put out, which is the last album on Electro-Fi Records, Didn’t We Have Some Fun Sometime. A lot of that is basically just live recordings from my garage, live stream recordings, mixed in with various studio things throughout the years, most of which I recorded. The album is nominated for a 2024 Blues Blast Music award in the Historical or Vintage Recording category.”

Harman gave his friend a hard drive full of his recordings and songs. Andrew Galloway, the head of Electro-Fi, gave James complete creative control for the album for song selection, mixing and mastering.

“On some of it you can tell Harman’s voice was starting to go. But they are some of the last recordings that he made, so I thought if the feeling and the story he was singing about were so good, that was more important than his actual vocal abilities. One of the biggest things I learned from Harman is just to stay true to yourself artistically. He was just a true artist, inside and out, for better or worse, In all honesty, James was financially not that well off, just getting by. Art was the true joy and meaning in his life. It was the only thing that mattered to him.

“I’ve learned to be more financially secure. Maybe my art would be better if I was more stressed out in certain ways. Recently I’ve had my fair share of big life changes, probably some of the hardest times in my life just in the last eight months. Lost my mother and then went through a divorce. I’m just now recovering from that. It was some pretty heavy stuff to have back to back. And that was a year or so after Harman passed away. It seems like quite a few people just kind of come and leave your life all of a sudden. The music is the one thing that keeps me sane. It’s quite literally all I have.”

In 2007, James entered the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, sponsored by the Blues Foundation. Along with Ben Hernandez on harmonica and other instruments, they ended up winning the Solo/Duo category.

“That did a lot for us, even though we didn’t even take that whole competition seriously. Wee just did it because our blues society in San Diego strongly encouraged us to, and they raised funds to pay our airfare out to Memphis. Otherwise we would have had zero interest in doing a competition. First place got us a slot on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues cruise, along with this big festival in Italy. Then we played a blues festival in Taiwan, Taipei of all places, that was the biggest highlight. And it helped us a little bit with the local gigs. Eventually, Ben wanted to settle down and have his family, so he moved back east and quit playing music for a living. It certainly was a shock at the time, but it also pushed me to get my band going, for me to get my singing and songwriting together.“

James recorded hree albums as a duo with Hernandez. He also has nine under his own name, most of them self-released., available at his website: www.nathandjames.com

“I may even be forgetting one. I don’t really put out albums every year, but for a period there I was doing almost every year. Now it’s a little slower because there’s less motivation to sell them. But I am currently working on a new one that’s kind of getting the gears turning after all the crap I had in the last year. So I’m refocusing on music, and hopefully, by the end of the year, I’ll have something released. The goal is to try to have something ready when I go to Europe for a tour in late October.

“My latest one is I May Crawl, released last year. It has several songs that I had written some time ago. The theme of that album was to release something that was 100 percent me, just solo by myself. After the pandemic, I focused on that as my first priority, my one man band with my foot percussion thing. When I play solo, that’s predominantly what I sound with the all original songs on there.

“Before that, in 2021, I released Soul Count, which was the all instrumental album, totally a pandemic thing. A lot of that was taken from my solo live streams, as I was performing solo almost every day of the week in my house. I was actually highly creative during the pandemic. I was just improvising these loop-based things with this loop pedal that I had. Then I took a lot of those recordings and edited them down to three and a half minute songs. That was the theme of that record, which is quite different than any others, probably the most non traditional thing I’ve released.

“Another one I did in 2012 for the Delta Groove label, entitled What You Make Of It. That was the time period that I was the most musically active in my own career with my band, the Rhythm Scratchers, which included Troy Sandow on bass & harmonica plus Marty Dodson on drums. We were touring all the time in the States and then to Europe a couple times a year. It was mostly original, some covers on it as well, with some rhythm and blues influence along with my country blues influence here and there. That’s when I really was starting to consider more roots in Americana stuff, I guess.

“I knew this DJ, Jeff Scott Fleenor, who was one of the main guys at Delta Groove. He was always a big supporter of what I did from way back from when I first started playing solo, always would promote my stuff. So I kind of had a personal connection with him as a friend all along, even before Delta Groove was a label. They hired me to play on some Mannish Boy’s recordings. We just talked about it for several years before the album happened. They saw that I was touring a lot. It was logical choice, as we sold quite a few CDs. That’s probably the most CDs I’ve sold, on that record. It was right before CDs took a nosedive and everything went to streaming. We’ll focus on pressing some LPs for the next one, but even that format doesn’t sell a lot. Just when LPs get real popular again, the older crowd don’t have their record players anymore.”

Living in a little mountain town in Southern California with a burgeoning music scene, James has been performing a lot, as it is his main source of income. He is bringing the band back, with Marty and Troy, while also making music with a neighbor who plays Hammond organ.

“He’s a pretty renowned professional musician that tours and plays a lot. His name is Ross Garren. Tomorrow I have an organ trio gig with him, just keyboard, not a real Hammond organ. He doesn’t bring that out. But it’s that sound. Ross also is a fine harmonica player who gets a lot of session work for artists like Keb’ Mo’ to Beyonce, but he is a blues guy at heart. In my eyes, Ross is a legit musician who can read music and does big Hollywood movie session work.

“I’m playing with Rod Piazza and, as you may have heard, Rod’s guitar player, Henry Carvajal just passed away. It’s a tragic thing. The last year and a half, I’ve been filling in for Henry with Rod’s band, because he was ill. Nobody knew exactly what he had until he passed away, which was cancer. We kept hoping that he would get well and be able to play again.

“So I’m learning Rob Piazza’s songs to play this weekend, and then in the fall there’s a show, a harmonica show I’ll be playing with Rod and Kim Wilson. My band, the Rhythm Scratchers, are basically Kim Wilson’s band when he plays in Southern California. It’s always fun, but it’s only a few times a year that we do that. I recorded the Kim Wilson album that came out quite awhile ago now, Blues and Boogie, Vol. One, recorded mostly at my home studio.

In his spare time, James has another hobby that helps him unwind.

“I make my own guitars that I play, the washboard guitars. Currently, I made a guitar out of a tree that I had felled up here in the forest. I don’t sell them or anything, just for my own use to perform with. I construct them myself, so that’s my unique thing. I probably have between five and ten, but I use at least three or four on a regular basis, like almost every gig. I go between my acoustic guitars when I perform solos, sometimes to my electric guitars, which are the ones that I make, the washboards and then this current one from the tree that’s kind of modeled after a Stratotone guitar. That’s currently my favorite, the last one that I made. I always have a resonator guitar on the solo gigs for playing slide guitar.

Like a lot of guitar players, James was fascinated with B.B. King and T-Bone Walker when he first started playing with Harman. But as he worked his way backwards from them, he eventually found a different artist to emulate.

“I got into Big Bill Broonzy, who played electric and played with bands, but his early stuff was him by himself on acoustic guitar. There’s a couple videos of him out there, and when I saw those, it kind of blew my mind, and made me switch all directions. It was more of a challenge for me to play that kind of stuff, play all by yourself and keep the rhythm and bass going all at once. It was a lot harder for me to do that than to play B.B. King lead guitar stuff. Then I branched out from there to all of his contemporaries.

“That was the fun thing of traveling with the Harman Band, because all the guys in the band were huge music aficionados and historians, and they would bring music from each region that we would travel into. We played CDs at the time, so someone put on Blind Willie McTell when we’d go into Atlanta, Georgia, Blind Lemon Jefferson, when we would go into Dallas, Texas. So that’s always at the core of my playing. I don’t strive to just play that stuff now, and haven’t for many years, having moved on to my own music. I guess Big Bill is one of the main guys, Tampa Red too. That’s what I studied heavily in my college years, instead of going to college.

“I’m learning more and more, because most blues that’s out there these days, I don’t consider blues. I almost would rather disassociate from it. I don’t know – folk music, blues, Americana. I just like to call it, consider what I do, roots music. Some songs that I write definitely could fall in the Americana style, even country influenced. But it’s so hard to really pinpoint one genre that I would be under. My preference would be that it not be thought of as just blues,

“Even the old blues was not just blues, as there was gospel influences. I guess I’m striving to be more of a songwriter whose songs are always going to have a very bluesy influence, because that’s where my biggest background is. Words don’t always flow for me. So I have to really exercise my brain to get them going. Then they’ll start to just come out of nowhere. When I compare myself to someone like Harman or another real singer & songwriter, I guess I am discrediting myself to some degree, but you can’t be a perfectionist, yet I try real hard to not have things that sound like something that has been done before.

“It’s so easy to have predictable patterns in the way the words flow. Especially in modern blues, it’s like they don’t even try to write songs, in my opinion. I hate to say it, but a lot of lyrics just seem to be cheesy. The lyrics Harman would come up with had such a poetic flow to them without sounding too sophisticated. He still would throw in slang and make a lot of fairly simple lines to keep your ear engaged. I don’t like songs that are too wordy, just something simple enough to keep you interested, but something that’s creative to kind of stick in your head!

“Harman used to say this about songwriting, and I always try to remember it the right way, but basically it was something like “You want the song to be like a woman’s dress. It’s got to be long enough to cover the subject, but short enough to keep you interested, intrigued, and spark your imagination. I think that is a pretty good goal.”

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Mark Thompson lives in Florida, where he is enjoying the sun and retirement. He is the past President of the Board of Directors for the Suncoast Blues Society and a former member of the Board of Directors for the Blues Foundation. Music has been a huge part of his life for the past fifty years – just ask his wife!

Bex Marshall – Fortuna

Dixie Frog Records

https://bexmarshall.com/

10 tracks

Bex Marshall is a UK British Blues Award winner and has been nominated four times for European Blues Awards. Her vocals blend rock diva and the pain of a sharecropper into a rocking blues mélange of music. Her slide, lead and other guitar style is in your face and up front and personal. She delivers nine original and one cover on her latest release, all hot and heavy performances.

Bex Marshall handles all the lead and most backing vocals and all things guitars. Toby Baker is on the keys and organs. Robert Eugene Daniels plays bass on five cuts. On drums is Richie Stevens. BJ Cole plays dobro. Shola Adegoroye sings Gospel backing vocals. Danny Bryan is on congas, darbuka, and percussion.

“Preaching To The Choir” gets the ball rolling. It’s a straight up rock tune with a nice groove. Marshall sings with her angst filled voice and her guitar riffs soar. “Dirty Water” follows, the lone cover. It’s a slow, breathy delivery of slow blues that builds a bit into a mid tempo rocker. Marshall continues her emotive stuff and her guitars play off each other in the mix and are featured heavily. Next is “I Can’t Look You In The Eye” which is a bigger rocking cut that Bex lays it all out on. “4 – 5am” follows that, a mellow and somber piece with lots of guitar and organ and Marshall again singing with her passionate style.

“Jungle” is a rollicking and bouncy fun song with a driving beat and ringing and stinging guitars. Then it’s “Table for One” which shifts gears into an emotive and somewhat thoughtful cut about sitting and eating alone. Guitars again are up front and featured. The title track is up next. This one is another driving rocker with a big guitar intro that continues turns into a slick and tasty instrumental delivered in an almost frantic pace.

“Lay Down and Die” follows with more big, rocking guitar and Marshall belting out the vocals. Heavy stuff. Next is “Scrapyard Dog” where Marshall takes things down a few notches and delivers a slow blues rocker with passion and aplomb. Concluding the album is “When Its Gone” is a lighter tune with dobro and slide and just an airy feel to it. It’s a slick change of pace and cool conclusion to the album.

Marshall’s rocking style of music is no holds barred. She delivers her songs with lots of feeling and plays the hell out of her guitars. The songs are all interesting and well crafted. The sound is not over-produced and showcases her and her band-mates skills. If you are into blues rock, this one certainly may be right up your alley!

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Steve Jones is president of the Crossroads Blues Society and is a long standing blues lover. He is a retired Navy commander who served his entire career in nuclear submarines. In addition to working in his civilian career since 1996, he writes for and publishes the bi-monthly newsletter for Crossroads, chairs their music festival and works with their Blues In The Schools program. He resides in Byron, IL.

Red’s Blues Band – Old Diamonds & Uncut Gems

Sherry and Ray Music

www.redsbluesband.com

15 Tracks – 64 minutes

Sacramento’s Red’s Blues Band is a four-piece band led by vocalist Beth Reid-Grigsby, aka Sacramento Red, on vocals with her husband, RW Grigsby on bass and vocals. Beth’s older brother introduced her to the music of Lead Belly, Muddy Waters, Mississippi John Hurt and others and she learned to sing songs like “Summertime”, “God Bless the Child” and “St. Louis Blues” alongside of her mother. RW nominated for Blues Music Award for Best Bass Player in 2017. The 2014 album, Remembering Little Walter, on which he played bass was also nominated for a Grammy Award and won a Blues Music Award for Best Album. He started playing at age 14 and started a professional career while still a teenager. Over the years, he played and recorded with Mark Hummel & The Blues Survivors, Gary Primich, and Mike Morgan and The Crawl. He balances playing with Red’s Blues with performances with other bands. The two first met in the Santa Barbara blues scene in 1977 and lived in multiple southern states before moving back to Sacramento in 2006.

Beth and RW founded Red’s Blues in 2012. Drummer and vocalist Tim Wilbur joined the band in 2015 and Doug Crumpacker on guitar, harmonica and vocals joined the band in 2019. Collectively, the band was inducted into the Sacramento Blues Hall of Fame and Doug & Tim both have been individually inducted. Tim has been a professional musician for decades and has accompanied Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Guitar Shorty. Doug also has decades of experience playing in multiple bands.

Old Diamonds & Uncut Gems is the fourth album for Red’s Blues. The album does include “old diamonds”, which can be interpreted as five older songs the band has previously recorded plus five cover songs. And the “uncut gems” are five new originals – “Lizzy’s Blues”, “Black-Eyed Sally’s”, “Singing a Brand-New Song”, “Looking for a Hustle”, and “Putting My Foot Down”. The album was recorded live at the Starlet Room in Sacramento on October 4, 2023. Beth and RW produced, and Kid Andersen mastered the album. Sid Morris guested on piano, organ, and added vocals on all but two songs. John Cocuzzi played the piano on tracks 13 and 14. Robert Sidwell also guested on guitar on all songs.

The album opens with “Broke Down in the Fast Lane”, their title song from their last previous album released in 2020. She sings that “It is hard to make a living with the shape I’m in”. Supposedly based on a true story about when her vehicle broke down and she had to wait for a tow truck. On “Singing A Brand-New Song”, she tells how after struggling to come up with a song, she woke up one night and had a new song. Sid’s piano plays off nicely with Robert’s guitar. Everybody’s “Looking for a Hustle” as RW takes the lead vocal.

“Poor Girl” slows things down to a sultry, jazzy blues as Beth asks, “what a poor girl going to do…throwing back a shot of gin trying to temper losses down…while she watches all of her dreams fall through.” “Road Scholar” is the story of a man who has spent too much time on the road for too little money. Tim takes the lead vocals for this one. “Putting My Foot Down” lets Doug pull out the harmonica and Sid rocks the piano as Doug says he “put my foot down on shaky ground”.

Beth sings about the goings on at “Black-Eyed Sally’s”, “the meanest joint in town. “Forty Years of Trouble” is their song to get people jumping. Marty Deradoorian adds sax as Beth declares that the man is “rusty as a bucket of nails”. Dave Earl then joins Doug for a harmonica duet on “Mighty Long Time”, a cover of a song written by Rice “Sonny Boy Williamson II” Miller.

Gary Primich’s “Stonebroke” again features Dave on harmonica as Beth declares she is “gonna be stone broke until the day I die no matter how hard I try”. But next she identifies that she “Ain’t Worried No More”, a cover of a song written by Mike Morgan. Jon Lawton guests on the slide guitar as Beth says, “Everything’s going to be alright. Everything is looking up and the sun is shining bright”. “Lizzie’s Blues” is a tribute to Memphis Minnie with Jon’s slide again in the lead. Beth sings “Yeah Memphis Minnie, I wish could say I knew you when, cause you were a pure diamond in an uncut gem”. Which obviously gives a throwback to the album title. She further identifies that “In a world of men, you were the queen of the guitar.”

“Sally Lou” is cited by Beth as her “hooker song”, the story of a working girl who is Sally Lou by night but is known as Betty Lee during the daylight. She “gives lovin’ under the cover like no one else can do”. John Cocuzzi really tears it up on the piano on this one. “Sherry Ann” is a bit of old-time rock & roll as he begs her that “I want to be your lovin’ man”. John again really gets things rocking. Sid’s piano and vocals closes out the album with Floyd Dixon’s “San Francisco Blues” from 1953.

The instrumentals drive the album. The male vocalists come off for the most part as somewhat crusty and lacking drive. Beth has some shining moments, and you can certainly hear some sultry tone in her voice on some of the songs.

Reviewer John Sacksteder is a retired civil engineer in Louisville, Kentucky who has a lifelong love of music, particularly the blues. He is currently the Editor of the Kentuckiana Blues Society’s monthly newsletter.

Checkerboard Lounge – Roller Coaster

Cheersquad Records and Tapes

www.checkerboardlounge.com.au

10 tracks plus a bonus

Checkerboard Lounge is an Australian quartet from Melbourne, Australia. This latest addition to their recording legacy features ten new original songs. They recorded their last album in 2020 when they were semi-finalists at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. The album, entitled Sun Sessions, won four of six possible Melbourne Blues Awards and was chosen as the Best Blues Album at the 2022 Music Victoria Awards. It was also part of Rhythms magazine’s Top 10 Albums of the Year and charted for over a year in Australia.

They claim to be a soul blues band, but I find their stuff closer to rock blues, although they do have a funky side to their music that travels through each cut. Shannon Bourne plays guitar and Zoë Frater is on bass. On the Hammond organ is Tim Neal who adds alto sax to the last track. Band founder Carl Pannuzzo sings and plays drums on the album.

The title track “Roller Coaster” starts the set. A rocking tune, it features some cool organ work, a nice groove that drives the tune, and stinging guitar. Up next is “Double Standard,” another rocking cut with a slick, almost tongue tying delivery of the lyrics along with more well done organ and guitar. Slow and deliberate jazzy and soulful blues follow with “King Of Nothing.” The vocals and organ are crying to the listener and the guitar fills in sweetly in this somber piece.

“Killing Time” opens with a driving intro as the band gets nasty as they deliver another rocking cut. Driving guitar is the order of the day here. The shorter version of “Came To Get My Heart Back.” It’s got a funky groove and has a cool vibe. “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” follows and opens with some ethereal, almost churchy organ (in a Bach sort of way); this goes on for over two minutes and then a funky, midtempo rocking tune breaks out. We get more organ and guitar featured as this cut goes on for seven and a half minutes and gets the feet tapping as it builds and builds. Then “Uncivil Compliance” gives us even more rocking funkiness in this hard hitting instrumental.

“Cry No More” opens with slide guitar speaking to us with an organ backdrop. Slow, dirty blues here on this cut. Passionate vocals grab the listener as the backing music builds and builds along with the vocals and the lengthy song goes out with a bang. Next is “Same Old Fool” which talks about things changing but, despite those changes, things remain the same. They get some more funk and rocking stuff going to good effect. The album officially concludes with “Prodigal Man,” which opens with guitar and organ and transitions into a thoughtful and tasteful instrumental cut, again topping seven minutes.

The full version of “Came To Get My Heart Back” is also included on their submission. The funk gets extended as Pannuzzo grinds out the vocals with passion with the band supporting the effort in style for nearly eleven minutes. It’s a long take on a good song that listeners will likely enjoy.

Funky, soulful, rocking blues are what is served up here. The vocals are gritty and impassioned. The organ is well done, the guitar work is cool and the bass and drums drive the bus to solidify the sound. It’s an Australian take on soul blues and if your looking for something a little different to sample then this might be something you’ll enjoy!

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Steve Jones is president of the Crossroads Blues Society and is a long standing blues lover. He is a retired Navy commander who served his entire career in nuclear submarines. In addition to working in his civilian career since 1996, he writes for and publishes the bi-monthly newsletter for Crossroads, chairs their music festival and works with their Blues In The Schools program. He resides in Byron, IL.