It’s been a few years now since we’ve had a chance to talk about smoky-voiced Pittsburgh native Barbara Blue, who has been holding down a five-nights-a-week gig at Silky O’Sullivan’s on Memphis’ Beale Street for the past 21 years, a feat that long ago earned her the title of “The Reigning Queen of Beale Street”.
Having previously recorded albums with both Taj Mahal’s Phantom Blues Band and Willie “Pops” Mitchell’s house band, Blue is still giving us plenty to talk about with her 11th independent release Fish in Dirty H2O (Big Blue Records), which may just be one of Barbara’s finest albums yet.
Everything here is solid, although we probably would have appreciated more of a straight-up blues take on the title track, a cover of a Koko Taylor tune on which Blue is joined by rapper Al Kapone. While we have to give Blue props for taking such a creative approach to the song, and it certainly works, there’s a part of us that really would have loved to hear Blue belting this one out just as Koko did (and as Blue herself does on other tracks like the tough driving rocker “Accidental Theft” that features former Gregg Allman Band guitarist Scott Sharrard and a New Orleansy “Wild Women” with horns, piano and female backing vocals), especially with so much of the project tending toward the swaying side.
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This includes one more track for their father from Lurrie and his brothers (accompanied again by Eddie Taylor Jr. on guitar), who display every bit the fire here on “One Day You’re Gonna Get Lucky” as throughout their own recording, with other real gems coming from the likes of Omar Coleman (a funky take on Junior Wells‘ “Train I Ride” that gets the album off to a great start), Jimmy Johnson and Dave Specter (an “Out of Bad Luck” that honors Magic Sam), Linsey Alexander and Billy Flynn (a soulful, swaying tribute to Jimmy Dawkins in “All for Business”), and Lil’ Ed and Dave Weld (who present a stinging “Speak My Mind” in memory of Ed’s uncle J.B. Hutto).
Early last year, we told you how good Canadian guitarist and singer Matt Andersen 
Appropriately available on the same Delmark Records label as on which Carey released his debut album (Carey Bell’s Blues Harp) almost 50 years ago and two collaborations with Lurrie in the 1977 Heartaches and Pain (Lurrie’s debut recording) and 2007’s Gettin’ Up, released just weeks before Carey died at age 70, Tribute to Carey Bell features a dozen tracks honoring their father. This includes the band’s take on a number of originals and classics performed by Carey throughout his career, as well as a pair of originals from the band in James’ dragging “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” — one of three tunes on which James (who also plays drums on the project) handles vocals, along with “What My Momma Told Me” (Junior Wells) and the funky “Break It Up” (Little Walter) — and a shuffling, Billy Branch-penned “Carey Bell Was a Friend of Mine” that features Branch on vocals and trading some nice licks with Steve on harmonica.
We could easily go through this album for you track by track, but the truth is that 1) absolutely everything here is solid and 2) doing that will really only delay you from going out to get a copy, which is something you’re definitely going to want to do. If, however, you’re looking for suggestions on a track or two (or four) on which to start, we might recommend the uptempo “Tell Me Mama” (Little Walter) that features Oscar Wilson on vocals, Jimi “Primetime” Smith and Johnny Rapp on guitar, and Henry Gray on piano; a creeping “Laundromat Blues” that combines high, raspy vocals from Alabama Mike with some haunting harmonica from Corritore, guitar from Big Jon Atkinson, and piano from Bob Welch to make for a tune that’s so gritty, you might really actually need a laundromat; a shuffling “Steal Your Joy” with booming vocals from Sugaray Rayford, guitar from Chris James and Mojo Mark, and bass from Patrick Rynn; and the funky grooves of “Blues Why You Worry Me?” with its screechy Hill Country style vocals from Alabama Mike as well as guitar from Atkinson and Danny Michel.
With each person having already distinguished himself as an individual performer, sideman, or member of such accomplished blues bands as The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters, The Mannish Boys, and Sugar Ray & the Bluetones, it should come as no surprise that the new soul-blues-rock supergroup The Proven Ones can make some great music together. But what may surprise you is just how great the music on the band’s debut album Wild Again (Roseleaf Records) is, with the recording quickly becoming one of our favorites of 2018.
Sometimes reflective, like on the slow, brooding opener “A Few Good Years”, the “Catfish Blues”-ish “Somebody Up There”, and the swaying, horn-drenched “End of the Line”; sometimes fun, like on a “Cognac” that also features guitarists Keith Richards and Jeff Beck to make for a smooth, slow-burning blues party of sorts on which Guy remembers another good friend with the lyrics “If the late Muddy Waters was here drinking with us, that bottle would be ten times gone”, then interjecting “can’t drink with me no more, Muddy, but I, I got Keith Richards”, and a Sly & the Family Stone-like “Whiskey for Sale” that’s, as Buddy likes to say, “so funky, you can smell it” (or, in this case, taste it) with backing vocals from the McCrary Sisters and Hambridge’s daughter Rachel, slide guitar, B3 and clavinet, with Guy at the end asking “Don’t that make ya’ feel good now?” (it sure does, Buddy, thanks); and sometimes just straight-up blues, like on the scorching cover of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Nine Below Zero”, the shuffling, partly falsetto-chorused “Guilty as Charged”, and a cautionary “Bad Day”, the album is everything you’d hope for from the soon-to-be-82-year-old Guy, showing that he’s still got his stuff both instrumentally and vocally, from the hard, biting blues for which we’ve long admired him (check out, for example, “Old Fashioned”, another number that incorporates some nice playing from the Muscle Shoals Horns) to slower-tempoed collaborations with the likes of longtime friend Mick Jagger (who contributes harmonica and a single “yeah” on the creeping “You Did the Crime”) and UK singer James Bay (who joins Buddy on both guitar and vocals for “Blue No More”).