Omar & the Howlers

Bamboozled

Ruf Records RUF1115

www.rufrecords.de

There is Chicago blues, distinctive from Texas blues by its bigger bands, rhythmic variety and use of harmonica, discernable from Memphis blues by the lack of horn sections within the rhythm section and different from New Orleans blues in having more rigid rhythm patterns and less funk. There is also Chicago advertising, distinctive from New York advertising in being more blue collar slice of life, discernable from Los Angeles advertising in being less neon fantastical and different from New Orleans advertising in not being able to advertise gumbo, voodoo or Mardi Gras. Chicago advertising appears to be the work of some working stiff rolling up his sleeves and licking the point of his number two pencil before trying to tell people why they should like what he's chosen to support himself by convincing them to like. This record is like Chicago advertising.

Big ol' fatback drumming. Simple, less is more electric guitar heavy enough for a rockabilly power trio. Gritty vocals. Happy guys onstage, showing the kind of good time to folks in a bar that they'd like to be having themselves if they happened to be in front of the stage instead of on it. This is a type of record most people will like in their collections. Whether it's this one or the mid-'70s "Malpractice" release by Dr. Feelgood or "Itchy Feet" by The Blues Band or "Straight Up" by the Downchild Blues Band is up to you. They're all good. One or more, for a good record collection, is mandatory.

Jeremy Spencer

Precious Little

Blind Pig Records BBCD5106

www.blindpigrecords.com

Has it been so long that you need to be reminded that Fleetwood Mac started out as a blues band, splintering off from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers after that act recorded an instrumental called "Fleetwood Mac?" Well, you know now, whether you knew two minutes ago or not, and they were a very good British blues act, too, less pop oriented than many and more possessed of a real grasp of backbeat rhythm, slide guitar, apocalyptic scary devil chords and lyrical themes than most.

And their slide man was Jeremy Spencer, who left the band to join an obscure religious organization before they began to find commercial success. Coincidentally, while the tabloid press was wallowing in lurid headlines of sexual activity within Fleetwood Mac, the legal systems of various countries were examining similarly extreme activity within Spencer's church, and the scandal did touch him a decade or more ago.

In any event, the 1948-vintage guitarist seems fully devoted to music on this record, which has an understated George Harrison sound to it, musically and lyrically. Indeed, it could almost be peddled as a George Harrison blues album. It's that close, and Spencer and Harrison were of the same generation of British slide players. Jeremy Spencer claimed Elmore James as his main influence with the early Fleetwood Mac, at approximately the same time John Lennon was exclaiming about Harrison, "Elmore James got nothin' on THIS Fender."

"Precious Little" is a sweet, mellow album, passionate and right. Well enunciated in that British former-blues way. There are few records like it coming out these days. I'm glad to own it.

Bill Perry

Don't Know Nothin' 'Bout Love

Blind Pig Records BPCD5104

www.blindpigrecords.com

Ah, one of those pyrotechnic head-cuttin' boys. Yassuh, this is about electric guitar, and there's so much of that out there these days that one has to be damn good to impress anybody. Bill Perry impresses. Not all of these are standards. Not all the standards are done as standards. This band fills all the holes, giving the listener a true wall of sound.

Once in awhile, amidst these eleven cuts, one thinks of Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughn or some remembered great, but only briefly, because Bill Perry really weaves a different sound for himself. We know which shelf to file it on, but we'll never mistake it for any file other than the Bill Perry file. He knows his pedals; he's not addicted to any of them.

There's something extra about his voice, too. He doesn't sing like a guitarist singing as an excuse to play guitar, but as a singer, and if he's not the greatest vocalist out there, he's not the worst. He has some very soulful phrasing and nuance.

His rhythm section drops into some different, interesting riffs while Perry's out front, too, especially during his solos. They're "Double Trouble" quality backers.

A stand-out cut here is the Temptation's "Ball of Confusion," dusted off here in barely recognizable, yet wholly reverential blues-rock form. Whoever thought of this, whether Perry himself or producer / rising star Popa Chubby, it was a damn good idea.

Glad to have it. Particularly good for cars and skis.

Sue Foley

New Used Car

Ruf Records RUF1116

www.rufrecords.de

I think frontmen and frontwomen learn the lessons of live blues performance in different orders, and that very few perform long and often enough to learn everything. Happily, that gives blues aficionados of different genders something to discuss before and after every show they see, no matter who the performer is, but occasional agreement is nice sometimes, too. Possibly because she shared a band's front line with a male partner for some time and became respected in the traditionally man's world of guitar before she began to acquire her still increasing fame as a vocalist, Sue Foley is a frontwoman most blues aficionados can agree on, regardless of gender. Her phrasing is sexy when the song is best suited to that ambience, dance-rhythmic when that's appropriate and narrative-connective and particularly clear when the song's telling a story.

While she and her band are far along on the scale so driving and energy, there is something relaxing about listening to this album, probably stemming from execution that at no point flirts with error ... you know the song's going to be done right.

Is it blues? After all, Sue Foley's one of those ethnomusicologist types like Bonnie Raitt and Rory Block, known to study, emulate and promote the pre-WWII greats, and one expects to hear quite a bit of that in one of her releases. "New Used Car" has about as much in common with Memphis Minnie's "Me And My Chauffeur" as the Rolling Stones' "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" has with Muddy Waters' "I Can't Be Satisfied," and for the same reasons.

Yes, the old blues is in her blood. It tells her what to do when she doesn't know what to do. It's what she's thinking about when she writes every song. "New Used Car" may not be a blues album, and that's going to be hell for the label and artist, because it's going to be in the blues bins at your local record store, but blues is what makes it a great album.

Fiona Boyes

Lucky 13

Yellow Dog Records YDR1353

www.yellowdogrecords.com

Apparently quite well known in her native Australia, this guitarist / vocalist cut this record in Austin, Texas, alongside some big names she's met on tours and through the intensive networking one does at the annual national blues talent show in Memphis these days.

She has a very nice, rollicking bar voice, comparable to that of, say, Duffy Bishop or Sheila Wilcoxsin. One might call it "Best of White Girl on Tequila." Okay, that's good stuff, now let's add the songwriting. She shines here. Immensely. Ten of the 13 tunes here were penned by Ms. Boyes, and they're damn fine. They're complete. They're long enough. They have enough innuendo and they don't belabor the world outside innuendo. They're right. Her guitar playing s also right.

Some of the songs, the ones possessed of patterns most familiar to the Austin blues mafia she fell in with for this record, fall into their rut, what with having been produced on their turf by their people and everything. That's natural, but it's a shame, because they end up, accidentally, I'm sure, making some of these recordings absolutely interchangeable with some of the Angela Strehli / Marcia Ball / etc. Texas blues women recordings tat have come out over the past twenty years. It is sad to listen to someone new and not hear something new.

The less standard ones show more evidence of Fionna Boyes taking artistic control, and they're great. They're unique, they're happening. She bestrides pre-WWII Kansas City and Fort Worth, mid-'50s New Orleans and today's Koala Springs with some wonderful material like "Pigmeat Lover," which is just as great a showcase for her guests as some stuff they bland out on, but which shows her to better advantage. "Rockabilly on the Radio" is that celebration of big car cruising to the dance hall for a more or less wholesome good time that no one with working ankles ever gets tired of.

She's very good. She'll be better on future albums when she's doing her own thing confidently instead of hunting big name collaborators.

Bernard Allison

Energized (Live in Europe)

RUF Records 1113

www.rufrecords.de

Oh yes, nice work. Some of the best. Very "Wish I'd been at THAT show." He really does carry on the tradition of his father(the great Luther Allison)'s talent and showmanship without being to any extent at all imitative. First recorded at age 13 alongside his father, Bernard got the best stage education, going from Luther to Koko Taylor to Willie Dixon, becoming a real part of real Chicago blues, weathering his voice (he's barely in his 40s and has that timeless blues vocal quality) to reach today. His amps are custom, his guitars many, his instrumental sound remarkably consistent and just plain remarkable ... you know that neck is warm.

This is a double CD live blues release. It's a night with a great blues band, having fun with the topics, the power and the potential of the blues. It reminds us of why blues is America's music and it reminds us of why that's such a good thing.

Aynsley Lister / Erja Lyytinen / Ian Parker

Pilgrimage

Ruf Records RUF1112

www.rufrecords.de

It's an experiment that went right. It had the potential to not. Three separate artists, young and impatient to get more ideas out of their heads than any one album could accomodate, each having to share time with two peers, rolling from Deep South blues country studio to Deep South blues country studio to combine personal experience with posterity recording. Without question, it could have gone awry, but it didn't. These three guitarists/vocalists, swapping out rhythm sections, ideas, and even studios throughout the creative process, synced.

Here, we see a unique burden added to the artists' workload; the burden of continuity. No one engineer or producer could have made that possible, with all those nomadic variables. Only the artists can take credit for that singular, fine accomplishment. Listen to them and celebrate an unlikely but wholly successful roll of the dice. Fourteen songs, none crashingly distorted. Variety without discord.

Albert Cummings

Working Man

Blind Pig Records BPCD5105

www.blindpigrecords.com

He's independently invented guitar-based blues rock. That's okay. His work is no less laudable for being similar to that of, say Foghat or Ten Years After. It's a lasting, joyous kind of music, from which much good has come to our ears over the years, and he's a topnotch purveyor of it. Where he really shines is on the introspective, barely plugged in stuff, where you can hear the pick on the strings and get some sense of true arrangements instead of a race to the red mark on the volume meter. He nails arrangements for the band, building songs and bringing his buds in just as well as he brings his own guitar effects, parts and phrases into his own song performances, and that makes for an especially good package. Nothing tightens a band or makes it more memorable than exactly what he does throughout "Working Man," especially on the quieter numbers.