This past weekend, we had the honor of attending our second Project Blues Review show in Columbus, Ohio. Still pretty amped after having seen a fantastic performance from Taj Mahal and Keb Mo’ the previous evening at the Heritage Music BluesFest in Wheeling, and with fond memories of our first Project Blues experience back in 2014, a tribute to Muddy Waters that featured John Primer, Bob Margolin, Bob Corritore, Bob Stroger, David Maxwell, and others, we had a sneaking suspicion this was going to be another great night of blues music at the LifeCare Alliance Center. And once again, the organizers of this fine event didn’t disappoint, treating the audience to a superb seven-hour show that included some of the biggest local and national names in the blues.
Carney, Booker & Berichon
The evening started with a set from Drivin’ Home, a local band featuring Project Blues Review producer Mike “Bear in the Chair” Berichon joined by International Blues Challenge winner Sean Carney and members of his band and vocalist Shaun Booker. Together, they tore through a set that included such classics as “All Your Love”, “You Belong to Me”, “Further on Up the Road”, and “Pack It Up”, with Mark “Kaz” Kazanoff of The Texas Horns also joining on harmonica for part of the program.
Next up was the Project Blues Review, featuring local keyboardist Bobby Floyd, local bass player Lenny Paul Fatigati, The Texas Horns, and a rotating cast of guitar-playing frontmen, starting with a shuffling set from Chicago’s Tom Holland that included “Sugar Sweet” and Otis Rush’s “It Takes Time” before Holland conceded the stage to fellow Project Blues host and 2017 Blues Music Award (BMA) Best Emerging Artist Album winner (Tengo Blues) Jonn Del Toro Richardson.
Holland
From the opening licks of the breezy, radio-friendly “Baby Got Gone” and hard-driving, “Boogie Man”-styled “Down for Love” to the closing, “top down, pedal-to-the-metal, better hold on tight” “Ride of Your Life”, Shepherd and the band lay down their fair share of rocking, cruising-down-the-highway-ready material stocked with terrific guitar grooves. And you’ll also of course hear a few nice ballads along the way, such as the tender “Louisiana Rain”.
The first solo album of Thorogood’s more than 40-year career, Party of One marks a true back-to-the-roots approach for the singer and guitarist who has sold some 15 million albums worldwide and performed more than 8,000 live shows, not only in that Thorogood began his career as a solo acoustic musician, but also in both his return to Rounder Records, the label on which Thorogood first signed back in 1976 and recorded his first three hit albums, and reunion with producer Jim Gaines (John Lee Hooker, Luther Allison, Stevie Ray Vaughan), who produced several of Thorogood’s earlier albums.
Following recent GRAMMY Award-winning blues harmonica player and singer Bobby Rush — a Louisiana native — across Mississippi and Louisiana, I Am the Blues (Film Movement) also features a number of other Delta-born or -based blues musicians, including Leo “Bud” Welch, Lazy Lester, LC Ulmer, Barbara Lynn, RL Boyce, Carol Fran, Lil’ Buck Sinegal, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, and pianist Henry Gray, most of whom were already in their 70s or beyond at the time of filming, with some having been performing since as far back as the 1950s or 1960s.
There are plenty of blues men and women who never received the respect or attention they deserved, and perhaps no one was more criminally underrated than late blues guitarist and singer Phil Guy, a genuine blues brother to the legendary Buddy Guy and longtime player on the Chicago and world blues scenes. An inspiration to Robert Cray and others, Phil’s been gone for nearly nine years now, but friends and family have done their best to help keep his memory alive through an annual 
Similar to the companion CD that was available in 2012, this one includes all of the songs from the DVD except for two, a “Country Boy” from Waters that took place early in the program (prior to the Stones’ arrival) and an instrumental reprise of “Baby Please Don’t Go” from Dizz. While it’s nice to hear the complete set of tracks and be able to fully witness everything that takes place through the DVD, this recording is much too good to pass up also having in your collection, regardless of whether you have already seen or own the DVD version.
Together, they produce a delightfully entertaining baker’s dozen of songs, from the swinging, Sugar Ray & the Bluetones-like sounds of the opening “House Party” (Amos Milburn) and Clifton Chenier’s “All Night Long”, both featuring Al Falaschi on saxophone, to the stripped-down Delta blues of Robert Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside Blues” that features just Wilson on vocals and Paterson on guitar, to the light breezy ragtime of the closing original “Don’t Let Life Tether You Down”, one of three songs on which Nosek handles vocals, providing such sage advice as “don’t let money run your life, cuz’ greed leads to strife” and “so leave that Facebook alone, and your iPhone at home/ don’t let things tether you down/ don’t let rectangular screens pull you ’round on a string/ don’t let things tether you down”.