For those who may not know him (even though we’ve talked of him often here on these pages, including this 2011 interview), Matt Schofield is a UK blues guitarist and vocalist now living in Florida. Matt’s latest album Many Moons / Vol. 1 reunites him with his original organ trio line-up of Jonny Henderson on organ and Evan Jenkins on drums for their first album together in more than a decade, and we have to say, they sound just as good as ever!
Here’s the first single off that album (which you better believe we’ll be telling you more about soon), a grooving number called “Can’t Catch My Breath” on which Schofield’s playing is bound to again leave you breathless!
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Recently, we highlighted the lead song off the new album collaboration from blues-rocker Kenny Wayne Shepherd and traditional bluesman Bobby Rush, a shuffling number with stinging guitar from Shepherd, gritty vocals and harmonica from Rush, and some swinging horns that, together, make for a great start to this 10-track gem from the two Northwest Louisiana bluesmen born just over 50 miles and more than 40 years apart.
Yes, we’re pleased to report that the rest of the duo’s Young Fashioned Ways is just as good as that first track, with Shepherd’s guitar and Rush’s harmonica making for a highly entertaining combination, as much so on harder driving numbers like that lead track “Who Was That”, the muddy “Hey Baby (What Are We Gonna Do)” and a shredding “You So Fine” with its Elmore James-style slide guitar licks as on slower acoustic tracks like the more stripped-down (no pun intended) “G String”, creeping “40 Acres (How Long)” — with its patient, almost minute-and-a-half John Lee Hooker-ish instrumental lead-in that’s so locked into their playing that you can hear some of the ambient sound from the studio, and that has you partly hoping it remains instrumental until the introduction of some eerie organ and then Rush’s restrained vocals — and simmering closer “What She Said”, again featuring some excellent keys in addition to displaying Shepherd’s and Rush’s instrumental talents.
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The lyrics might say “down in New Orleans” but the feeling is definitely still way up when listening to the band’s newest single, “Uptown Downtown”, another excellent, high-energy New Orleans-flavored track that’s bound to lift your spirits no matter how bad a day you might be having. Enjoy!
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Blues soulstress Janiva Magness is back with a new album this month that we’ll tell you more about soon, but here’s a quick taste for you in the meantime, in the form of a slinking, edgy, “you done lost your good thing now”-kind of track with some gritty vocals, grungy guitar, and terrific grooves. It doesn’t get much better than this (although we do have to say that nothing tops the new album’s title track)!
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American Folk Blues Festival Live in Paris 1962 • Bremen 1963 (The Lost Recordings)
There are, fortunately for us all, a good number of recordings from the American Folk Blues Festival over the years, but we’re certainly not going to complain about another one, especially when it sounds as good as this one does AND consists entirely of previously unreleased material. You’d think that, by now, any existing recordings of these shows would already have been unearthed and made available, although there were, of course, numerous offerings of the festival across the U.K. and Europe over its almost decade-and-a-half existence. So we’re glad that the good folks at The Lost Recordings were able to locate these sets from the early 1960s capturing previously unreleased material from the likes of such greats as Sonny Boy Williamson, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, also featuring appearances from Memphis Slim, Sunnyland Slim, Hubert Sumlin, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, and others.
The audio quality of this latest American Folk Blues Festival collection is some of the cleanest and crispest we’ve heard from live performances, particularly ones that took place over six decades ago. There’s a lot to like about the double LP set, including tracks from Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee such as the opening “I’m a Stranger Here”, the breezy “Born and Livin’ with the Blues”, and “I Got My Eyes on You”; Willie Dixon performing “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and stuttering his way through “Nervous”; a quiet acoustic set from John Lee Hooker that includes “I Need Money”, “Everyday, I Have the Blues”, “Night Time is the Right Time” and “My Own Fault”; and the jazzy, instrumental “Moanin”” from a T-Bone Walker-led band that also included Willie Dixon on bass.
Speaking of cross-generational collaborations (as we were in last week’s post on Kenny Neal and son teaming for a new single), we were pretty excited to hear about the upcoming album from two other Louisiana bluesmen, who were born more than 40 years and just over 50 miles apart: blues-rocker Kenny Wayne Shepherd and traditional bluesman Bobby Rush.
Here’s the first single released off of their upcoming album Young Fashioned Ways, featuring everything you’d expect from the pair: stinging guitar from Shepherd, gritty vocals and harmonica from Rush, clever lyrics such as “When I went into the bedroom, I could tell somethin’ wasn’t right/ it was all tore up like you been in a pillow fight”, plus some swinging horns. If you like what you hear in this shuffling number, the good news is that you only have to wait another week or so for the whole album, which releases March 21st.
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Here’s some swampy blues released last week from Louisiana bluesman Kenny Neal and his son Micah Willis, with Kenny’s brothers Frederick (keyboards) and Darnell (bass guitar) helping to make it even more of a family affair (along with Amos Singleton also on keys and Michael Harris on drums). Kenny provides some gravelly vocals and gritty harmonica in addition to slide and rhythm guitar work on the track, with Micah contributing some slightly smoother and more soulful vocals to help balance things out, to make for a smoky, entrancing track that will transport you deep (some might say devilishly deep) into the Delta!
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We wouldn’t say that British blues guitar slinger and vocalist Andy Fairweather Low has exactly been invisible until now, having spent much of the past few decades playing and touring with Eric Clapton. Keener observers among Slowhand fans might, for example, remember Clapton acknowledging Low at the conclusion of “Hey Hey” on 1992’s Unplugged album, and anyone who saw or heard Clapton’s 2013 Crossroads Guitar Festival either live or on recording is sure to remember Low’s rousing delivery, backed by Clapton, of “Gin House Blues”, a performance that had us, and we’re sure many others, running off to see what other music we could find from this guy already, and kicking ourselves for not having checked him out further the first time we heard Clapton say his name.
But we do kind of see Low’s point in titling his latest album The Invisible Bluesman (The Last Music Company). While we’re sure we weren’t the only ones on whom Low made quite an impression with his 2013 Crossroads performance and many other concerts with Clapton around the world, we recognize that other Slowhand fans might not have had these same chances to see Low singled out. And, truth be told, Clapton is just one of several well-known artists with whom Low has spent time as a member of the band over the decades, along with the likes of Roger Waters, George Harrison, Pete Townshend/The Who, and Bill Wyman, just to name a few. Based even on our own experience (failing to check out Low as a frontman until well after we first knew of him), we can of course understand how Clapton and some of those others might tend to cast long shadows over any of their sidemen, regardless of how talented those band members just might be.
Along the way, Low did of course put out several albums with his own bands, but The Invisible Bluesman is the first to be devoted to the blues, which, it probably won’t surprise you to read, is where we happen to believe Low most excels.
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Here’s another single we’ve been digging recently, released this week, and that will really get your feet moving and you feelin’ good…the lead track from New Orleans (by way of the U.K.) pianist Jon Cleary‘s upcoming The Bywater Sessions album, a (very) uptempo take of an old favorite that, just like its name, is “so damn good”! Enjoy!
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We’ve heard some great new blues singles these past few weeks and thought we’d share a few of them with you through a series of quick, no-fuss weekly posts, so that you can get right to enjoying them too!
Here’s the first of them, released just today: a welcoming tune from Taj Mahal and Keb Mo to mark the return of their collaboration known as TajMo, the title track from their upcoming sophomore album. “Come on up, there’s room on the porch for everyone”!
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