Cover photo by Bob Kieser © 2016
In This Issue
Don Wilcock has our feature interview with Big Bill Morganfield. We have 6 Blues music reviews for you including reviews of new music from Bob Margolin, Jon Spear Band, Zakiya Hooker, Chaz DePaolo, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado and Han.
We have the latest in Blues society news. All this and MORE! SCROLL DOWN!!!
From The Editor’s Desk
Hey Blues Fans,
Been spending lots of time at the post office picking up boxes of CDs from artists submitting their releases for consideration for a nomination in the 2016 Blues Blast Music Awards. Submissions remain open until April 15th.
Complete information and instructions on how to have your recording considered are at www.bluesblastmagazine.com/2016-blues-blast-submission-information
Also, this is your last week to take advantage of the lowest priced advertising for 2016 with our Early Bird Special. This affordable and effective discount package features 2/3 off our standard 2016 prices! This sale offers the lowest advertising prices of the year. But Hurry! This special ends on April 15,2016.
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We are flying out to cover our first Blues fest of the 2016 season next week when we head to
The Nevis Blues Festival in the Caribbean. This lovely little event in a tropical paradise is like a dream vacation but hey, somebody has got to do it right? We will have complete coverage of the festival in an up coming issue.
Wishing you health, happiness and lots of Blues music!
Bob Kieser
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Featured Blues Review – 1 of 6
Bob Margolin – My Road
www.bobmargolin.com
VizzTone Label Group
12 songs – [44:38]
Bob Margolin needs no introduction to most Blues Blast Magazine readers as the long time Muddy Waters guitar player and even longer time keeper of the Muddy Waters flame; a multi-award-winning guitarist, singer and songwriter; KBA-award winning writer; and renowned producer for artists such as Big Bill Morganfield, Candye Kane, Pinetop Perkins and Ann Rabson.
Now in his late 60s, Margolin’s new album, My Road, shows that he has no intention of slowing down or easing up. He describes the album as his “ride through modern challenges, the ironies and lessons of aging, achieving true love, mourning, my band’s distinctive signature sound, a childhood epiphany, my seven years in Muddy Waters’ band and exploring the darkest sides of life with friends who have been there.” That’s a pretty fair description. It is also an album of confidence and joy, played with spark and deep emotional power.
There are a number of interesting elements in My Road. First, the band comprises Margolin on guitar and vocals, Chuck Cotton on drums and vocals and Tad Walters on harp and guitar. The way the musicians play together, however, means that the absence of a bassist does not detract from the music at all. Sometimes this is due to Margolin playing overdubbed guitars to create intertwining complementary guitar parts a la Muddy and Jimmy Rogers or Jimmy Reed and Eddie Taylor, for example on “I Shall Prevail” and “Feelin’ Right Tonight”. At other times, however, it is all about the clever use of space by the musicians that creates the sense of a deeper, broader sound.
Linked to this is Margolin’s own guitar playing. Long rightly cited as one of (if not, the) greatest exponents of Muddy Waters-style slide guitar, his control over the subtle microtones available to bottleneck players is magnificent. On My Road, his slide playing on “Understanding Heart” and “Devil’s Daughter” is as heart-breaking as ever. In addition, however, Margolin plays a lot of standard guitar and this is where he especially impresses. As they age, many electric guitar players lose the aggression and power of their youth. The legendary Albert Collins is a rare example of a player who bucked this trend and seemed to play with ever more bone-rattling attitude and assertiveness as his career progressed. I don’t know if Collins’ and Margolin’s shared love of Telecasters plays any part on this, but Margolin’s playing on My Road displays a similar level of bad-assery, whether playing lead or when grinding out dirty, gritty rhythms on tracks such as “Low Life Blues” and “My Whole Life”.
Of the 12 tracks on the album, Margolin contributed six songs, plus one co-write, as well superb covers of Sean Costello’s “Low Life Blues”, Tad Walters’ “Ask Me No Questions”, Tex Rubinowitz’s “Feelin’ Right Tonight” and DB Codd’s “Devil’s Daughter”. One of the emotional highpoints of the album is the cover of Nappy Brown’s “Bye Bye Baby”, where Margolin and Cotton harmonise the vocals over Walters’ sympathetic harp backing.
Margolin’s own lyrics are frequently autobiographical, such as in “My Whole Life” or the wry acknowledgment of the aging process in the shuffle of “Young and Old Blues” where he sings “I love to play the blues on my guitar, so I went to see BB King. It was hard to believe that a man so old could still play and sing. I was 20 years old and he let me sit in and he tore it some more. That ancient man played all night long – BB King was 44. I shake my head and smile about how we look at young and old. It depends on which side you look from – and the truth sure can be cold.”
With its mix of blues styles, top drawer musicianship and sparkling production, My Road is a first class slab of modern blues and is highly recommended.
Reviewer Rhys Williams lives in Cambridge, England, where he plays blues guitar when not holding down a day job as a technology lawyer or running around after his children. He is married to an American, and speaks the language fluently, if with an accent.
2016 Blues Blast Music Award Submission Are Now Open
The 2016 Blues Blast Music Awards series has begun. Submissions are open until April 15th, 2016. The Blues Blast Music Awards are the largest fan voted Blues awards on the planet. But hurry! Submissions end April 15,2016!
To visit our website for complete on how to have your music and musicianship considered for nomination, CLICK HERE
SAVE THE DATE – The 9th Annual Blues Blast Music Awards ceremonies will be held on September 23, 2016 in Champaign, Illinois. Complete information on tickets and lodging coming soon.
Featured Blues Interview – Big Bill Morganfield
“It’s kinda like I’m walking in a fog,” says Big Bill Morganfield. “I’m right in the midst of things. My whole career has been just kinda surreal. Things just keep unfolding.”
Perhaps the single most telling fact about Morganfield’s career is that he did not take the stage name Muddy Waters Jr. As most blues fans know, Muddy Waters’ real name was McKinley Morganfield. When the late Paul Butterfield inducted Muddy into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, he called him one of the great musical treasures of this century.“Aside from Robert Johnson, no single figure is more important in the history and development of the blues than Waters. The real question as regards his lasting impact on popular music isn’t ‘Who did he influence?’ but – as Goldmine magazine asked in 2001 – ‘Who didn’t he influence?’”
One of six children born to the iconic Delta blues legend, Big Bill Morganfield most certainly was influenced by his father, but he didn’t seriously take up guitar until he was 27 and his father had just died. Big Bill took six years to woodshed before he took his performances public and 16 years before he released his first album Rising Son in 1999. His yet-to-be released seventh album sounds authentically Muddy-like with his barbed wire in Vaseline guitar and vocals that are downright eerie in their similarity to Muddy’s regal baritone. But even in 1999 Big Bill had no concept that he would still be recording and performing in 2016.
“I had no idea I would still be on the road. In reality, all I wanted to do was that Rising Son record and dedicate that to my father, and I would have been good. I coulda walked away and gone back to teaching and doing whatever else I was doing, and I could’ve been a happy soul, but it just didn’t happen that way, but I had no idea. I just knew that I really wanted to make my dad proud. I wanted to be respectable and be respected and just didn’t want to be thought of as somebody who is trying to take a free ride per se.”
Even today, he looks at trying to fill his father’s shoes as “almost like being in the Olympics.”
The sad irony of Big Bill’s life is that Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin, Hubert Sumlin, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and other artists that have performed both with him and his father, knew Muddy Waters better than he did because his dad was always on the road.
“Oh, man. Bob (Margolin, Muddy’s guitarist from 1973 to 1980), has been instrumental to me. He taught me a lot. My daddy, if he was living today, he would probably run up to Bob and hug him and say, ‘Thank you so much’ ’cause Bob has been like a big brother to me, not just recording. Every record I ever recorded, he’s on. Most people don’t know that. There hasn’t been a record I made that Bob hasn’t been on except maybe Blues in the Blood(2003), but he’s been like a big brother.
“When I first came out, and we were playing over at the Kennedy Center, everybody (else) was known. You got Phoebe Snow, you got Keb Mo, you got Greg Allman, you got Koko Taylor, you got Buddy Guy, you got Robert Junior Lockwood and on and on. I was the only guy that wasn’t known. Only connecting thing was that I was Muddy Waters’ son, and I was nervous, really nervous, and Bob would call me. I remember him saying, ‘Let’s do this for the old man.’ I said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it for him.’
“That kinda calmed me down, and he was right there next to me on stage, and he kinda helped me with that walk like a big brother, and I don’t know. Bob has been instrumental to my career, and I love him. He’s been very instrumental. He’s been like a brother to me.”
In many ways, Big Bill knows his father more through his music than he does from the little time he got to spend with him. “I don’t talk about that very much, but there is a certain amount of sadness because I my daddy spent more time with the world than he did with me, and when I say that, I’m only saying that he gave more of himself to the world than he actually did to me and some of the other kids because he was always gone, always gone.
“As I have gone through my journey, I’ve gotten to know my father really well. I’ve gotten to understand the reason why a lot of things were the way they were. It’s been more like therapy, me being a blues musician has been therapy, and me being a musician has been therapy, and it’s answered a lot of my questions that I wasn’t able to ever sit down and talk to him about certain things, and a lot of things were answered as I went through my blues journey about my father, and why this was like this and why that was like that.
“It’s a place I don’t like to go to much. It makes me kinda sad, but it has to do with a young man being close to his father and wanting to be close to his father in more ways than everybody. Everybody wants to know their father, and they want to know their mother. And you want your mother and father to be there, to be around. And when they’re not, you ask yourself a lot of questions. First, you ask why. To sum it up in a short brief saying, why he wasn’t around is answered for me, not by him, but by my blues journey, that journey that I sought through the blues. A lot of those questions got answered for me hands on, I saw why, and I understood why things were like they were.”
One of the songs on Big Bill’s debut album was “Dead Ass Broke.” When he first wrote the song, he called his mother and sang it to her. “She felt so bad,” he told me in 1999, “that she sent me a check. I was like, ‘Oh, ma. It’s alright. It’s just that I don’t have as much money as I want right now. I’m ok.’ I sent the check back to her, but I just felt like here I am. I’m not teaching right now. (He had been an English teacher in Atlanta). I was making a pretty good living there. My wife and I’m doing this music thing here, and now I’m having to wait here, and I’m not playing as much, and I’m really kind of feeling broke.”
On his about-to-be-released CD, Morganfield has a song called “When You Lose Someone You Love” that he sings about the death of his mother: “Called me to her bedside and I began to cry/It hurt me real bad to have to see my mother die.”
Sometimes, we as blues fans forget that the catharsis we experience vicariously through the music of our favorite artists comes from real life experiences. And in the case of somebody like Big Bill who is the offspring of an icon whose very existence seems beyond our concept of reality, it is almost jarring to realize that each of them has gone through very real pain that is the inspiration for these songs.
“There are certain expectations,” explains Big Bill. “People expect you to know what you’re doing and to know it good, and do it real good because you’re always going to be compared to him. And let’s face it, how many blues guys get compared to Muddy Waters?
“You learn what pain is. And then you go about trying to treat people right which is important to me. Be like this and try to do the right thing, not for money, not for this and not for that, but only because it’s the right thing to do, and that’s an important part of my character ’cause I try to pass along things to my kids, and I touch other lives out there, and I say to myself, the high and mighty didn’t put me down for self-gratification to come down and just enjoy this and enjoy that, but hopefully I was put here to be just like my father did, to do like a lot of people have done, and to make a difference in other people’s lives.
“I remember one of my favorite movies is “It’s a Wonderful Life” and that kind of puts it in perspective how we are here, and we make a difference in other’s lives, and to me that’s one of the most important things that I can represent or that I can stand for and that is touching others, making a difference in other’s lives.”
Today Morganfield may sound like his daddy, and his guitar style certainly shows his influence, but the emotions he bleeds out are his, and his music translates his unique and singular pain into joy in its catharsis from that pain,
“That’s right. That’s what it does, and I say a little prayer before every performance. I bow my head and I ask that the Lord let me touch the people I’m about to perform for. If only for five minutes let me make ’em forget about a certain amount of pain that they got or forget about this and to be just soulfully their soul, their spirit, to administer to their spirit just like a Baptist preacher or any kind of preacher would do on Sunday.
“You go in and he puts into words and says things, and you walk out feeling good, or you walk out feeling better. The problem’s still there, but you walk out feeling better, and that’s really powerful thing that we face the trials and tribulations of the slings and arrows of our lives. It’s important to be able to be able to be in touch sometimes.
“That’s what music does for a lot of us. I mean, it’s the healing effect. I don’t know. I’ll just leave it at that. Music is very important not just to me but to millions and millions and millions of people. I wrote a song called “The Devil at My Door,” and our slogan was the devil ain’t got no music. So, music is so important to us as we live our daily lives, such a big part of it.”
Morganfield has given me and you, my readers, an amazing gift in his openness concerning the pain of knowing his father more through his band members than from his own time spent with Muddy. I can remember how reticent Robert Junior Lockwood was in talking to journalists about his life because he was so bitter that most interviews would be about his relationship with his stepfather, Robert Johnson, rather than his own music. I asked Morganfield if he and Lockwood ever discussed this issue.
“Well, we talked about a lot of things. We talked about music in general. We didn’t talk a whole lot about his ties with Robert Johnson. I remember he talked about he went on tour with my daddy, and he said, ‘I’m the guy they used to bring all the money to because they would spend all their money, and they would give it to me to keep it for them,’ and he had some really great stories.
“That’s another guy that I miss sorely that I was able to go to his house and was able to sit down with him, and one of the things that struck me was that he had the guitar plugged in and the amps on standby. I saw the red light on.
“I said, ‘Robert, you keep that thing on?’ He said, ‘I keep that on all the time.’ He said, ‘I play every day,’ and that kind of stood in my mind that here is an old guy that probably knows how to play that stuff backwards and forwards, but he still has his hands on it every single day, and I just thought that was – I don’t know. It just stood out in my mind, and soon after that visit I lost him. We lost him, the blues world lost him, but he was one of the guys that as always tied to Robert Johnson, and that’s going far back.
“I think Honeyboy Edwards was tied to him, too, in some ways, but I mean that’s just kinda cool ’cause my daddy respected Robert Johnson. We all respect him, and he’s been gone for a long time, and we still have a tremendous amount of respect for him, and his name is still brought up in different circles always.”
The most successful offspring of iconic cultural trailblazers use their parents’ success and renown as a jumping off point to find their own identity and use their good genes to advance their own muse. Big Bill Morganfield is a great example. His CDs Rising Son (1999), Ramblin’ Mood (2001), Blues in the Blood (2003), Born Lover (2009) and Blues With A Mood (2013) have each featured tenured players often with a Muddy Waters connection. Each has earned rave reviews, and each has advanced the Delta-by-way-of-Chicago legacy of his father while digging deep into his own views of life.
Big Bill has also had some side show experiences that add to his self-proclaimed surreal existence. He played himself in a Season three eighth episode eight of the Cinemax program Banshee, a kind of modern day serial with testosterone that included two of his songs, “Evil” and “Strange Love.”
He’s performed “Chicago” with Tom Waits on a 2012 David Letterman show, and he toured Russia and Syria with Stephen Segal.
“That was strange. I mean it was good, but for me it was strange because I had been in Syria for a week, and I realized that I hadn’t seen a black person for a whole week, and I was like – it was like, ‘Bill, let’s go downtown. I need some luggage.’
“So I went downtown and went to some shops and bought some luggage, and I went walking back, and it was all white guys, and I said, ‘I’m gonna go back to the hotel,’ and I went back to the hotel dragging this piece of luggage, and I had people looking at me and some guy starts speaking this language to me, and I was like, ‘I don’t understand,’ but they were looking at me like, I don’t know ,man. They were nice, but it was really strange, and I looked strange to them.
“I guess they might have grabbed me up, but I said, it’s gonna be a little bit of a fight ’cause I’m not gonna let you take me where you want to take me. Anyway, I had no problems, but it was just kinda surreal walking through the streets of Syria. That’s all I can tell ya about it. It was just surreal, surreal.”
It’s been 33 years since Muddy died. “Thirty-three years, but again, time is going by. In that period of time we lost great guys, but they were like my best friends, Pinetop, Hubert Sumlin, Willie “Big Eyes” Smith. These were guys that connected me musically to my father. They would tell me these stories. They would share all these things with me, and now all of a sudden, these guys are gone, and I’m like, ‘Wow, man.’ It seems like so surreal. It’s like my feet sometimes are not even on the ground.
“I know I didn’t want to be thought of as someone who is Muddy’s son. I just didn’t want to be thought of as somebody taking a free ride, and that’s why my whole career would have been to mark him, to imitate him. That would have been easy, because I kinda sound like him naturally. That would have been the easy way, and I said, ‘I don’t want to go that route.’”
Visit Bill’s website at: www.bigbillmorganfield.org/
Photos by Bob Kieser © 2016
Interviewer Don Wilcock has been writing about blues for nearly half a century. He wrote Damn Right I’ve Got The Blues, the biography that helped Buddy Guy jumpstart his career in 1991. He’s interviewed more than 5000 Blues artists and edited several music magazines including King Biscuit Time.
Featured Blues Review – 2 of 6
Jon Spear Band – Live Music is Better
Self Released
www.jonspearband.com
12 tracks
A collection of central Virginia’s finest blues musicians makes up Jon Spear’s Band and I must say they sound pretty darn good. Mixing blues with funk and swing, Spear (guitar) is joined by Dara James (harp and guitar), Andy Burdetsky (bass) and John Stubblefield (drums). Recorded live at the Southern Café and Music Hall in Charlottesville, Va. Last November 27th, these Central Virginia Blues Society members are a tight and well honed group.
Spear’s street credibility go back to opening for the Isley Brothers decades ago. He was a mentor to Hollywood fats and Debbie Davies. Drummer Stubblefield has been playing since the Beatles arrived here. Burdetsky grew up in DC with the Nighthawks and Danny Gatton as influences while in junior high. James is the young’un of the bunch, singing and playing guitar since age 14. The four of them offer up a cool live album of blues rock.
Beginning with “Devil’s Highway,” the band sets the bar high. Big guitar solos and some nice vocals by James get the crowd into it. The extended second guitar solo was a little too much long in my mind to open a set with, but that appears to be their modus operandi and the crowd ate it up. “Nothing to Nobody” takes things down a bit and features solos by James and then Spear doing this Robben Ford cut. Adrian Duke provides some nice organ work and Haywood Giles appears on sax. The guitar solos contrast nicely; James slings his way through stratospherically while Spear is more workman-like and gutsy in his tone. Both were good. Duke plays piano and Giles returns on sax for “Shake Your Boogie” with Spear fronting the band and James is on harp. The band swings and gets bluesy on this Hollywood Fats song as the harp and guitar set the pace before Giles comes in for a gritty solo. After another verse Duke gets his turn and gives us a dirty solo of his own before James comes in for his; he’s quite adept on the Mississippi saxophone. “Before the Bullets Fly” is a 1988 song written by Warren Haynes for an album of the same name by Greg Allman that was perhaps not as well received as his prior, but this was a great song and Haynes includes it in his show. Spear and then James take turns again soloing and do another great job. The bass line is really out front and quite big here, making for a driving, primal beat.
They go down to NOLA to cover the classic Neville Brothers instrumental tune “Cissy Strut.” The bass is big again here and we have Duke on organ and Giles on sax to add flavor. James does a huge solo up front and then Giles does an extended one, too. Spear follows with a very cool and funky tone and then it’s Duke’s turn. This is a little different approach than the Nevilles; rocking blues versus their sound makes for an interesting cover. The classic “Have You ever Loved a Woman” gets a fresh cover with some well done vocals (which answered by the guitar) by James. Thoughtfully done! “Old Soul” brings us back to original music by Spear with James in the soulful lead and Giles doing another big sax solo. Delbert McClinton’s “Blues About You Baby” is a rollicking ride with Spear growling the vocal line and offering the lead guitar and first stinging solo. James also solos nicely here, too.
The band goes a little honky tonk on “I Love My Skin,” with Duke in front on vocals and playing piano. He’s got a nice country blues approach to his singing. Giles gets another solo here and plays well against the piano. “Paid in Full” is one of those slow rocking anthem songs that begins low keyed and builds into a major guitar attack. James provides the lead guitar and vocals here. Not blues but it’s a big song. The Blue Devils cut “Beginner at the Blues” (a song Coco Montoya often plays) follows. James does a nice job with it. The CD concludes with Spear’s title track. Spear is out front and takes the first solo. He swings and testifies to the point that live music is better. Spear, Duke, Giles and James all take turns soloing and the band goes out together for their finale. It was fun.
This is a good album of live blues and rock. Jon Spear makes things interesting and he and Dara James seem to have a good time playing off each other. The mix is big on the low end for most of the CD, making the rock stuff rockier and driving. It’s a clean live recording with an energized band and crowd all enjoying themselves.
I’d heard Spear’s Old Soul album with many of the same cuts. That has a very clean studio sound to it. There is more feeling to the music here in the live album. It’s worth a spin. Check this album out!
Reviewer 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.
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Featured Blues Review – 3 of 6
Zakiya Hooker – Live in Germany – International Bluesfest – Eutin, Germany
Boogie With The Hook Records
www.zakiyahooker.com
14 linear tracks|75:34 running time
Though it was recorded five years ago, this disc was released in tandem with Zakiya Hooker’s latest studio effort, 2015′s In The Mood. Listening to them in succession yields a comparative yardstick with which to compare and contrast the live experience versus the studio experience. As stated in the January 30 2016 review of In The Mood, Zakiya’s producer/bass playing husband is Ollan Christopher Bell. His stage name is Chris James and he is the music directer of the band on this date. You may remember his former vocal group, the Natural Four, who sprang from Oakland, California’s Boola-Boola record label to be signed by ABC Records and ultimately contracted to Curtom Records and subsequently produced by the legendary Curtis Mayfield.
The opening track on this Cd is Bell/James covering the late Johnny “Guitar” Watson’s “I Want To Ta-Ta You Baby,” a track that according to Mr. Google, has not been covered on record by many since it’s inception in 1976. Mr. James does an outstanding job, nailing Watson’s groove and putting the crowd in the mood for Zakiya.
Ms. Hooker greets the throng as if from here own living room. “Well hel-lo. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Truly you must be Blues fans. You are out here in this raaiinnn!
The Louis Jordan/Sam Theard song, “Let The Good Times Roll,” was chosen as the opener and as she explained to the crowd later, Zakiya is sometimes inclined to change the lyrics to fit her relaxed delivery.
The song selection of the disc also includes compositions by Robert Johnson, Brownie McGhee, John Lee Hooker, Luther Dixon, the husband and wife songwriting team of Zakiya and Ollan as well as others.
The artist’s in between song patter is upbeat and jovial despite the precipitation that everyone had to endure. At one point she pauses to acknowledge and praise some children who approached the stage.
On the Hooker/Bell penned “Cold, Cold Feeling” and the epic Robert Johnson’s “Stones In My Passway,” Zakiya pours out down in the alley Blues sensibility and phrasing that can’t be faked. The band adds some sizzling funk flavor to the Johnson composition.
The musicians on this session are Zakiya’s Argentinean contingent and include the Bozas brothers, Federico on bass and Willy on drums as well as keyboardist Fabricio Loborda. Anchored by and under the direction of bassist Bell/James, they swing and shift effortlessly between Blues, Jazz, Funk and Rock arrangements. The energy generated on and off stage indicates a good time was had by all. Even in all that rain.
Listeners, be advised that this is a linear recording recording with all fourteen selections on track 1.
CyberSoulMan Tee Watts is music director at KPFZ 88.1 fm in Lakeport, California. His radio show, Redemption Songs, airs Sunday and Wednesday mornings from 5-7a.m. PST, 7-9 a.m. CST, 8-10 a.m. EST at www.kpfz.org.He is road manager for Sugar Pie DeSanto, the last Queen standing from the glory years of Chess Records.
Featured Blues Review – 4 of 6
Chaz DePaolo – Resolution Blues: An Acoustic Blues Journey
Smoke Tone Records
www.chazdepaolo.com
10 tracks / 34:04
Tri-state denizen Chaz DePaolo definitely has a great work ethic, and through his constant stream of gigs and tours he has developed a massive set of blues and rock guitar chops as well as a healthy stage presence as a killer frontman. His talent has earned him not only the respect of fans and music critics, but also with fellow musicians, and he has played with legendary cats including Buddy Miles, Little Milton, Kim Wilson, Jose Feliciano, David Maxwell, and Blue Lou Marini.
Chaz has released a handful of albums as well as a live concert DVD, and all of them are very good. His fifth release is Resolution Blues: An Acoustic Blues Journey, which was recorded on February 20th of last year (his mom’s 80th birthday, by the way) at Showplace Studios in Dover, New Jersey. DePaolo laid down the vocal and guitar tracks, and he was joined by members of his usual band, including Hank Kaneshige on bass, Cliff McComas on drums, and Rob Chaseman on the sax. Prestine Allen worked the piano on this one, and executive producer David Biondo brought his harp along with him from Colorado.
Resolution Blues includes ten songs, all originals that were written by Chaz, and most of the tracks were recorded in one take. There is a definite “Live show” vibe to the proceedings, and DePaolo converses a bit with the listeners and the band members as things move along. The first song in the queue is “A Love So Strong” and many listeners will be hearing this man on an acoustic guitar for the first time. This is a fundamental change as this time he has to rely mostly on his voice to lead the band, and the void left by his electric guitar is ably filled by Allen’s piano and Chaseman’s sax; these guys works together marvelously! The lack of heroic guitar solos also leads to shorter tracks, and in this set they all come in around three or four minutes long.
Chaz does get to stretch his legs a little on the title track, as he really digs into the guitar on “Resolution Blues,” a song of hope and change. Though it is a blues song at heart, Prestine’s piano improvisations give it a bit of a jazz vibe over the bouncing beat of Kaneshige’s earthy-sounding bass. DePaolo also tears up the guitar part on “I’m Not Angry Anymore” and you will hear that he has an amazing touch on the fretboard.
The listener gets a history lesson from “Gunther 414” which runs down Robert Johnson’s legendary recording session in room 414 at this storied San Antonio hotel, though I think Chaz might be a little off on the spelling. Biondo adds a very tasty harmonica part to this tune, as well as to one of the standout tracks on Resolution Blues, “Angel on My Shoulder.” This is a song DePaolo wrote in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and it has such a positive vibe about getting right with the world that it is hard not to smile while listening it.
The set finishes up with “Share” and there is only Chaz and his guitar. There are no solos to be found here, just a driving vamp and the man’s soulful voice. This is a song about trying to be “honest with yourself and others,” a lesson we should all keep in mind, and a good message to end with.
DePaolo obviously put a lot of work into writing these songs, as they all have well thought out lyrics and they are very slick. On the first listen it may seem that there is not much variety in the sound, which is one of the dangers of going acoustic and recording the songs back-to-back. But after each listen I find new things that I have not heard before, and this complexity makes Resolution Blues some of Chaz’s finest work yet. Give it a listen for yourself, and head over to his website to check out his gig schedule as April is going to be a very busy month for him!
Reviewer Rex Bartholomew is a Los Angeles-based writer and musician; his blog can be found at rexbass.blogspot.com.
Featured Blues Review – 5 of 6
Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado – Songs From The Road
Ruf Records – 2015
www.risager.info
CD – 15 tracks: 79 minutes; DVD – 18 tracks: 99 minutes
Another successful issue in the “Songs From The Road” series from Ruf finds Denmark’s Thorbjørn Risager live in Bonn, Germany, with an expanded band including horns and backing singers. Thorbjørn plays guitar and handles lead vocals, with Peter Skjerning on lead guitar, Emil Balsgaard on keys, Soren Bojgaard on bass, Martin Seidelen on drums, Peter W Kehl on trumpet and flugelhorn, Hans Nybo on tenor sax and Kasper Wagner on alto and baritone saxes; Lisa Lystam and Ida Bang add backing vocals. Thorbjørn wrote most of the material and there are three covers.
The sound and picture quality are first class throughout and give the listener the feeling of being right there in the room. Thorbjørn sings in English with some trace of accent and has an extremely gruff voice that may not suit everyone’s taste but the band plays well across a range of styles. Opening track “If You Wanna Leave” starts with Thorbjørn’s ringing guitar and Peter’s slide work while “Paradise” has plenty of backing vocal work from the girls. “Drowning” changes the style with something of a French chanson feel emphasised by some great trumpet and alto work. Peter’s slide gives a Delta feel to “Too Many Roads” and adds menace to the moody slow tune “China Gate” (written by Victor Young and Harold Adamson for the 1957 film of the same name). “Rock N’ Roll Ride” lives up to its title with pounding drums and keening slide before Peter switches guitars to join Thorbjørn on a choppy “High Rolling” which the horns sit out. The delicate ballad “Through The Tears” makes considerable demands on Thorbjørn’s vocal style but has a lovely horn and piano arrangement with Thorbjørn’s guitar solo at its centre.
“Long Forgotten Track” is a strange name for a song and it turns out to be an Americana style road song; “On My Way” is also quite a slow and melodic tune with slide from Peter but “All I Want” picks up the pace with a lively horn arrangement and swirling keyboards. There are then two very well-known covers: Big Joe Williams’ “Baby Please Don’t Go” is given a relaxed and funky arrangement that works well; “Let The Good Times Roll” starts promisingly with an arrangement that reminds you of BB King’s, all blaring horns and rocking piano but unfortunately is extended to over 11 minutes with a protracted guitar duel which was probably more fun live than on record. As an encore Thorbjørn returns to the stage to perform the stripped down ballad “I Won’t Let You Down” as a duet with Lisa with just the two Peter’s accompanying on guitar and flugelhorn; the full band then runs through a track with the most inappropriate title – “Opener” – which bears a strong resemblance to “Standing On Shaky Ground” before being introduced to the crowd by Thorbjørn and taking a bow.
In a very generously filled concert there are three DVD only cuts which had to be left off the CD due to time constraints: Emil features on boogie piano and Hans on tenor on a rollicking blues entitled “The Straight And Narrow Line”; “I’m Tired” is a solid shuffle with strong horns punctuating the tune which has some resemblance to the Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson song of a similar name, Thorbjørn taking the solo honors. The sinuously funky “Get Up, Get Higher” is aimed at the feet though it does not look like there was any space in the crowd to dance on the night!
For fans of the band this set will be a must-have; for the neutrals it gives the opportunity to both hear and see Thorbjørn and the Black Tornado in a full concert setting.
Reviewer John Mitchell is a blues enthusiast based in the UK who enjoys a wide variety of blues and roots music, especially anything in the ‘soul/blues’ category. Favorites include contemporary artists such as Curtis Salgado, Tad Robinson, Albert Castiglia and Doug Deming and classic artists including Bobby Bland, Howling Wolf and the three ‘Kings’. He gets over to the States as often as he can to see live blues.
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