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Magic Slim & the Teardrops
Anything Can Happen
Blind Pig Records BPCD5098
There is a sort of “Zen” to good Chicago blues. Less is more, except when it comes to volume. Magic Slim's not the king of guitar tone or dexterity. He's not a distinctive vocalist. If there's “magic” here, it's the magic of putting exactly what belongs in a space, whether the space under consideration is the physical space (in the case of this record, Sierra Nevada Brewery, Chico, California) or the space a musician fills within a group within a particular performance of a particular song.
In blues, the name on records or program flyers is often the name of an individual (B.B. King, Etta James) rather than that of a band. Magic Slim & the Teardrops are an exception, and there's a reason for that. This is one seamless unit. They know each others' strengths and weaknesses, wants and worries, and they share a clear idea of how to entertain an audience. Though Magic Slim is one of the few remaining Mississippi born, first generation electric Chicago bluesmen, he is not interested in standing out if it means standing outside his beloved backing trio.
There are times when listeners want craft rather than art, when they want what comes out of the speakers next to be simple, right and natural rather than complex and controversial. These are the times for Magic Slim & the Teardrops' “Anything Can Happen.” Eleven songs, nine of which are originals.
Elvin Bishop
Getting' My Groove Back
Blind Pig Records BPCD5100
Paul Butterfield Blues Band alumnus, best known for the crooning 1975 “Fooled Around and Fell in Love,” Elvin Bishop is classified as a blues artist, but has always retained a few arrangement and studio quirks that leave him in a curious class by himself. The second of nine cuts, “I'll Be Glad,” throws a distinctively rock descending passage, impossible to improvise, into an otherwise Chicago blues number, then goes to a guitar sound approximating that of a very loud, overblown kazoo. It works, but what do you call it?
When cut three, the classic “Sweet Dreams,” opens up, that question's answered. You call it, “Elvin Bishop.” He's got a vision of blues/rock/country coexistence that's sustained him and his audiences for several decades. This is a good record for any gathering of new or light blues fans and anyone who just plain enjoys good records. Production and sidemen are stellar. It's a good introduction or reintroduction to Elvin Bishop.
Mark Lemhouse
The Great American Yard Sale
Yellow Dog Records YDR1238
www.yellowdogrecords/marklemhouse
This guy can write. He can write in love or forlorn, sober or otherwise, in his workspace or in line at the grocery store. Though he's on a blues label and includes comparisons to Keb Mo, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Kelly Joe Phelps, Chris Smither, Corey Harris, and Chris Whitley in his press kit, he's really a unique, roots plus artist. By “roots plus,” I mean that one can tell where Lemhouse is coming from, but can't really guess what's coming next, lyrically or musically. That's a good thing.
It's humor, in that humor is the unexpected, the unexpected is the original, and Mark Lemhouse is an original. It's also tough to review him other than with the general praise above without telling the stories of his songs, and they're his songs, stories best told by him. If you like stories well told in song, you'll love this CD.
Doug Cox & Sam Hurrie
Hungry Ghosts
Northern Blues Music NBM0030
Fun fact to know and tell -- “Hungry Ghosts” is the name of one of the six realms of existence on the Buddhist Wheel of Life, home base for insatiable cravings. In that title, there is a broad approach to the philosophical underpinnings of blues/roots music, and a solution to the mystery of this CD's title.
Let us move on to the mystery of who Doug Cox and Sam Hurrie are. They're guitar gurus out of Canada, good, socially aware lyricists, given to eclectic instruments like brass (as opposed to steel) guitars and Celtic Cross double-neck Weisenborns(not a collectible garden gnome, but another obscure guitar).
There are some collaborators on this record; but it's about Doug Cox and Sam Hurrie. It's folk music, in a world music kind of way, and it's extremely various. From “Nap Time for Sam,” which is almost a vaudeville piece, to a relatively standard blues take on “Kansas City,” it is free of genre lock as the best records of 35-40 years ago were.
The sound is beautiful, as if all producers, performers and engineers took the obligation to share the sound quite seriously.
Thirteen songs, another one out of the park for Northern Blues, a label to look for.
Renee' Austin
Right About Love
Blind Pig Records BPCD5099
There's nothing like a great female blues singer. That's why the titles, “Empress of the Blues” and “Queen of the Blues” are so much more believable than their male equivalents. That's why, when Robert Johnson was sleeping in ditches and jumping freight trains, Bessie Smith was filling tents, maintaining a goodly payroll and even outfacing the Ku Klux Klan one legendary night in Concord, North Carolina. Renee Austin's voice and presence on this record give her a place within female blues singer royalty that's hard to dispute.
Sure, there's some humor among the ten songs here, and some cleverness, but what dominates this album is wisdom about the blues from THE character who's been its cause and its victim. Daily life gives a woman the blues. Sometimes, not always, she gives it back. She's not the super-strutting type who owns the hearts and privities of every man she sees, but a woman, with all the causes of celebration and sadness that shape the blues.
The band has a classic rock-blues feel ... multiple guitars, organ that's not just the trad. R & B ballad bottom feeder, and prominent, workmanlike harmonica. They propel, like an engine, and Ms. Austin drives. Her live shows must be something. “Right About Love” certainly is. This is one for other female blues singers to take notes from.
Otis Taylor
Below The Fold
Telarc Records CD-83627
I love neither the man's press kit nor his previous records. He admits to both playing banjo while riding a unicycle in his youth and to commercial motivation. He has been known to intentionally seek ugly sound on recordings. I do, however, love this CD.
It protests social injustice poignantly and effectively, so that it is hard to tell which is the message and which is the foundation – the music or the message. A record that weaves medium and message this well is a great record. It can be listened to at any time and make the listener think.
Musically, it is adventurous and quite deep. Mr. Taylor really does blend banjo and cello effectively, as his press kit predicts. There are new things here, passages to be backed up and studied again and again, phrases one would like to see centralized as themes for important tunes on future releases.
The stories here are nothing short of grim, and nothing short of true. The Colorado National Guard did kill women and children during a strike-breaking operation in 1914. German soldiers who'd massacred American troops in Belgium in WWII were hanged specifically for murdering the white soldiers, with black Americans excluded from the court's ruling. And so on. People have done these things to one another. Where was it, Tulsa or Oklahoma City, where private flyers dropped grenades on a black neighborhood during riots in the early '20s?
In truth, injustice does not occur only between races, nor only in the United States. We are approximately 810 generations from the cave, and it shows. Otis Taylor happens to choose American racial injustice as his focus. Well, he does a magnificent job of it.
Taj Mahal
The Essential Taj Mahal
Columbia/Legacy C2M94967
tajblues.com
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, AKA “Taj Mahal,” is the student teachers dream of. Beneath his authentic deliveries of blues and Caribbean songs that came out of poverty and folk traditions is a highly educated man. His father was a respected jazz arranger and pianist, and young Mr. Fredericks studied musicology and became involved in the Pioneer Valley Folklore Society before going on the folk circuit and moving gradually into the worldwide reputation and respect he enjoys today.
Live, he is known to fall back on imitation and to give more room to sidemen than they really deserve, cutting back on his own bandstand possibilities. Colleagues in my own blues community still brag about jamming with him casually one night a decade ago, yet we would have benefited more by sitting down and listening to him than by hampering him on that bandstand that night. Simply put, he knows the music better than most people on or off bandstands and labels.
“The Essential Taj Mahal” gives the listener more than a great, broad collection of recordings spanning several decades. It also presents a strong case for this artist's influence on the music and musicians he's surrounded himself with. It establishes him as an important part of the tradition he originally studied.
High points ... each of the three dozen tunes, which range from intricate, solo finger-picking banjo pieces to large band compositions. Taj Mahal's central place in popular American music deserves a central place in your record collection.
Hubert Sumlin
Hubert Sumlin's Blues Party
Shout Factory Records DK31156
shoutfactory.com
I can't improve on the words of Jon Pareles, New York Times music critic, who wrote the following: “To blues fans, Mr. Sumlin's solos are instantly recognizable. They are neither melodies nor standard blues licks, but jagged single notes – shrieks and plunks and shivering moans. In its angularity, its careful textures and its unswerving syncopation, Mr. Sumlin's playing is unfailingly modern, an influence on everyone from the Rolling Stones to Captain Beefheart; it is also as volatile and expressive as the best blues singing.”
Never an ambitious frontman, Hubert Sumlin nevertheless has always had something to say. That he could be heard saying it, even behind Howlin' Wolf, says much. On this record, he says it with a wonderful cast of partners – Mighty Sam McClain, Ronnie Earl, Ron Levy, Greg Piccolo, Jerry Portnoy, Doug James, Dave Maxwell and more. It's a dream band, and it brings out the best in him. Of course, “Down in the Bottom” brings chills, evocative of the classic Wolf version as it is. “Living the Blues,” penned by Sumlin, shows his power with a band not trying to imitate Wolf. The other eight songs are carefully selected to show all facets of a genuine first-generation electric bluesman.
Production's not great. Everything seems to be the same distance from mics, and it's not an ideal distance for anything. That's just a symptom of the state of things in the blues back in '87, when the record was put together. It doesn't detract much. This is a good release, and a historically significant one.
Hubert Sumlin
Healing Feeling
Shout Factory Records DK31157
shoutfactory.com
To the uninitiated, “Healing Feeling” seems an inappropriate name for a blues album. That ol' two-dimensional, down blues makes one sad, the antithesis of healing, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong, and if you can't be believed by some reviewer, then take it from Hubert Sumlin. If you've ever looked for a statement that makes clear the uplifting that makes blues the best musical form for a party or small club, here it is.
Hubert Sumlin, the guitarist behind Howlin' Wolf, lauded by Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Carlos Santana and Jimi Hendrix, states the rule that there are no rules. With a solid band and monster drummer behind him, he takes the music wherever he feels like going at the moment. It's dance music that makes one want to move, even though Sumlin's leads rarely stick in one groove for more than 36 bars. He's on the edge of distortion, but his single notes, masterfully controlled, ring out exactly as he wants them to. This is the kind of guitar work that taught '60s rock players that the amplifier was part of the instrument. Whether dueling with harp, keys, second guitar or horns in the front line, backing other featured vocalists on the record or simply accompanying his own soulful, if aged voice, he delivers passion.
Stylistically, “Healing Feeling” takes the mainstream blues route from the Delta through Memphis to Chicago, acknowledging the landmark movements like funk and landmark players like B.B. King, that have appeared on that Highway since Mr. Sumlin first traveled it with Howlin' Wolf more than half a century ago.
Lewis Taylor
Stoned
Shout Factory Records DK37422
shoutfactory.com
Techno-Motown, with standout individual playing thrown in. A good combination. This is a sexy, funky record, with whispering, falsetto male vocals in the tradition of African griots. The rhymes are consistently simple and obvious, but at no time trite, as the songs are firmly, solemnly, maturely based in universal truths.
Press materials tout Lewis Taylor as already being a known and respected name in the UK, from whence he hails. If there are more albums like this in him, then his name needs to be familiar and sought in record bins in the US soonest. It's a new take on R & B.
Packaging is the record's weak point. Design ignores the value of contrast in readability, and trying to read song lyrics or credits in tiny red type on a burgundy background, or mustard on sienna, is almost impossible. Label and artist decision makers, please take note! Lewis Taylor is far too enjoyable a recording artist to be hampered this way.
Brian Blain
Overqualified for the Blues
Northern Blues NBM0011
northernblues.com
His vocal is closer to talking than singing, without much focus on melody. One would not want to listen to that approach from every songster on the radio, day in and day out, but it's ideal for Brian Blain. So is the snare drum, right up front with his sweet, only slightly ragged voice, probably making it possible for a man who spends a lot of time accompanying himself solo on acoustic guitar to stay in strict meter.
Instrumentation is simple, yet elegant. He's got absolutely the right people playing the right instruments on each of the thirteen cuts. “Saab Story” is upbeat lounge stuff. Other tunes, like “Blues is Hurting,” “No More Meetings” and “One More Weasel” are blunt. It's not so much politically active as just aware of the folks at the next booth in a diner late at night. It's not so much commentary as conversation.
I like the brief biographies Mr. Blain provides for each song in liner notes. It's a warm, working touch for a warm, touching CD.
Zak Harmon
The Blues According to Zachariah
One version of the story is as follows. “Jerry Wexler (Atlantic Records) called the Stax studio in Memphis and told them he'd just signed a regional singer out of Detroit who was ready to break national. Wexler felt that a Stax-type tune would be just the ticket to launch the prospective new star, and wanted to send him to Memphis for a session. House songwriter Steve Cropper had never heard of the guy, so he went into the record store in the front of the Stax building and listened to some of his work, noticing that the artist had a habit of slipping the same ad lib line into every song. Figuring that the phrase was a favorite, he used it as title and hook line for the commissioned song.
Shown the chart between the Memphis airport and the studio, the singer expressed dislike for the song, and he and Cropper got into a fistfight over it in the car. Eventually, they calmed down, and “In the Midnight Hour” was recorded, much to everyone's benefit. Pickett was lucky. His ad lib was a little different, and it created a new, timeless hit recording. Zac Harmon's constant ad lib is the word, “baby,” and that song's been written and worn out. One tires of that and the overuse of melisma in his vocals on this record. The music's great, both regarding individual players and teamwork, but the vocal treatment lacks taste.
I have little doubt that Zac Harmon's a popular club showman. One can tell from this record that he earns applause and shows audiences a hell of a good time with his playing, his songwriting and his passion. He needs, however, to use his tools a bit more judiciously to really be competitive in the big world of blues recording.
Sonny Rollins
Without a Song(The 9/11 Concert)
Milestone Records MCD9342-2
From his apartment six blocks away, he saw the World Trade Center destroyed. Still in shock four days later, when he was booked to play at Boston's Berklee Performing Arts, he almost canceled the concert. Persuaded externally by his wife and internally, one feels after hearing this record, by his own innate and correct confidence in the healing power of music, he went on with the show.
It is uncannily rife with healing. Rollins, 71 at the time of this recording, is one of those rare treasures of music; a man who keeps the cutting edge he shaped decades ago sharp and glistening bright. He is a master of romantic texture, weaving in and out of a rock solid section transcending melody to highlight all that is best on a bandstand and in the world it faces.
These songs are all long, yet one wants them to go on and on, because what's happening on that bandstand is too big to fit into the context of five renditions, even when they're each between 11 and 17 minutes long. As this critic enthusiastically stated a few years ago when Rollins released a studio version of “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” it is impossible to imagine a better match of artist and material, and this statement is just as true on “Without a Song,” where the tune centerpieces the live set.
Along with the players and material, the sound here is noteworthy. Interesting microphone placement keeps the congas far ahead of the piano, allowing them to function believably as traditional African talking drums throughout and adding a vocal quality to a wholly instrumental release.
Magnificent and uplifting.