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| Freedom Creek |
| Rooster Blues |
| This is the best record Fat Possum never made. The Alabama-based King has a wonderful gift for grinding hard-core electric blues, but the difference here is that the songwriting takes an unflinching look at the isues of race, racism and povery that are a part of King's daily life. Every cut moves and grooves (and if you don't think so, check your ass into a morgue) but the important thing is that the man is SAYING something important and contemporary. This is certainly my favorite record of 2001 so far, and I can't imagine another record beating it for the rest of the year. |
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| LITTLE MILTON |
| Feel It! |
| Malaco |
| Milton Campbell has been making great soul blues records for so long and with a general consistancy to the quality that its hard to remember that some are actually better than others. This one is his best in a very long time. The full human band is here, sure, and Milton hasn't lost his touch as a fine, soulful singer. There's the by now standard take on a country classic (Patsy Cline's "He's Got You"), but the real curveball is the cover of, ulp, Kenny Rogers' "Lady". It's okay, the rest of this album is so good, you'll forgive just about anything. |
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| JIMMY SMITH |
| Dot Com BLues |
| Blue Thumb |
| If you recognize the name Jimmy Smith as the premiere practicioner of the B3, you know he has been laying down some VERY bluesy jazz (or is it jazzy blues?) for a long, long time. What's especially nice about his latest release is to hear him mix it up with some of the finer blues singers and players from across his many decades. Dr. John, B.B. King, Etta James, Taj Mahal, and the more recent Keb Mo' all stop by to be washed in the cool waters of Smith's mighty Hammond. The remaining instrumental cuts (come on, its a Jimmy Smith record) keep the groove going, and what else can you say? You can put this on and forget about the shuffle mode, and in the dot com era, that's high praise indeed. |
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| Say Baby Say |
| Cannonball Records |
| There's something really appealing about a woman who's been around a while belting out some great songs and having a good time doing it. Adams voice is far from mellow, yet she's not belting anything out either. Surrounded by these smooth and smoky arrangements, she's nonetheless a blast to listen to. A lot of this record positively swings, and its hard not to imagine yourself in some club hearing the exact same stuff. The more I listen to this thing the better I like it. |
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| ROBERT BELFOUR |
| What's Wrong With You? |
| Fat Possum |
| Belfour's unadorned acoustic blues is a welcome change of pace from Fat Possum's unending stream of raw, electric pathology. His voice is rough and genuine, his guitar is the kind of atmospheric recorded-in-his-bedroom kind of sound that puts you right smack dab in the middle of the Mississippi hills. It's good to know that this kind of music is still being made, and I'm happy to see that Fat Possum is doing it so well. |
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| SCOTT DUNBAR |
| From Lake Mary |
| Fat Possum |
| A little-known 1970 album on Ahura Mazda Records, this re-issue is a phenomenal set of haunting acoustic blues. Delineated by Dunbars killer voice, at times gentle and mellow, at other times a high-pitched Skip James moan, these country blues classics are amazingly fresh sounding. His singing on "Forty-Four Blues" is a multi-layered affair, providing both rhythmic accents and a high and low-end vocal, and done, of course, in a single take.This is one of the best acoustic records I've heard this year, and it's certainly the most interesting. |
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| ALVIN YOUNGBLOOD HART |
| Start With The Soul |
| Hannibal Records |
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To Hart's credit he refuses to wear the uniform in the neo-acoustic blues parade. Though his debut album was a great shot in the arm for country blues, he continues to catalog the variety of his influences and combine them with strong blues sensibilities. If you heard last year's "Territory" you know what I'm talking about. This new one is even more so, kicking off with electric guitar riffs striaight outta 70's southern rock. And then its on to 50's rock and roll, country novelty, a little Robert Fripp-ery, and sonic atmospheres from the Los Lobos/Latin Playboys canon. You get a strong sense of where this stuff is coming from reading the list of "thank yous" in the liner notes. The Allman Brothers, Afghan Whigs, Los Lobos, and Robert Gordon, Neil Young, and Richard Thompson are part of a list of more traditional blues giants, which really shouldn't come as a surprise for a musician of the Baby Boom. But these are all flavors to the meat and potatoes of Hart's terrific voice as a singer and writer. His lyric anger always seems tempered by memory and regret, the city dude out on the farm so to speak, and that vague romance is a major part of Hart's appeal to me. This record is a visit to Hart's world, full of his ideas as a whole musician, and it is certainly no straight-up blues record. Heaven knows there are enough of those to go around, choking on their respect for the genre. Its hard not to smile at the end of this album as Hart does a Howlin Wolf rendering of "Will I Ever Get Back Home?". It seems like a none-to-subtle jab at the folks who undobtedly wonder what happened to the nice young man who used to sing at "Big Mama's Door".
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| DAVE SPECTER |
| Speculatin' |
| Delmark Records |
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This is easy going jazzy-swingy-bluesy instrumental music that might remind you of last year's Duke Robillard/Herb Ellis record. Specter and the band show off the chops and a little more edge, but not much and that makes for a thoroughly pleasant set of terrific background music. Soaked in smoky B3 atmospheres, this is one of those "mood" records that you can put on and just lay back and enjoy. If more music was like this, our lives would be a lot better to live in.
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| BOBBY RUSH |
| Hoochie Man |
| Waldoxy Records |
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Damn! Bobby Rush is one funky individual! Not like cheap wah-wah guitar funky or James Brown git-on-up funky, but what funky is at its core: low-down sexy and gut bucket real about the nasty parts of lovin'. Rush writes songs about what makes a man love a woman with no teeth, or how his woman ran off with the garbage man. And he sings them songs with a hell of a real voice. Not sweet. Not smooth. But real. Real goddamn sexy. And funny, too. His spoken word setups to many of the songs on Hoochie Man are, by now, standard fare for soul blues performers, but Rush knows how to work 'em to a tee. He even makes me forget about all the synthesizers and drum samples on this record, too. In fact, as much as I hate them in general, here they actually help. Don't ask me how, they just do. If I wasn't already married to Latimore, I'd be parking in front of Bobby Rush's house at three o'clock in the morning.
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| E. C. SCOTT | |||||
| Masterpiece | |||||
| Blind Pig | |||||
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To get to the point, I haven't heard as solid a set of songs as this in a very long time. Scott is a Bay area singer-songwriter whose previous albums on Blind Pig only hinted at the possibilites. The power of maturity is overwhelming here, with her voice (which was never in doubt) matched perfectly to smart, well-produced songs that just don't seem to let up. This is the no-bullshit point of view of a woman who knows exactly who she is and what she wants. From a sweet title cut, through the powerful "If You Don't Love Me" (I know how to love myself, she says, and damn right!) and out to a rousing gospel finish, this is an amazingly consistent effort. Scott even manages to make Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" her own-- over my initial objection, by the way. With the recent influx of younger women guitar slingers taking much of the spotlight, its important to recognize the value of Scott's brand of sass, class, and intelligence. I am floored.
The BarlowMeter™ is based on the Barbara Price Index which states "If you don't have ten good songs, then don't make the damn record". Smart woman. Every record I review here is good and, in my opinion, worth checking out at full retail price. The stars are just my little way of letting you know how they hit ME.
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