Today, we move from talking about a tribute album to a universally known bluesman who was around for a long time to a tribute album to a bluesman who wasn’t nearly as well known as he should have been during his far too short time on this earth, despite our own best efforts to help on that front by telling you about many of his band’s recordings. But we have no doubts that we would have seen and heard many more great things from UK singer and guitarist Matt Long had he the opportunity to live another six decades like the legendary subject of the last tribute we reviewed.
While we can’t of course fairly compare Long (or anyone for that matter) with a world-renowned bluesman such as B.B. King, we can say that Long exhibited a far broader range of versatility in his music, with Long having fronted both the blues-rock outfit Catfish about which we’ve talked many times here (including the band’s EP tribute to King When B.B. Sings the Blues!) as well as the heavier-hitting The Revenant Ones through his years, both of which are represented in the songs selected by the guest artists for this tribute, entitled With a Little Help from My Friends – A Tribute to Matt Long.
Most of those artists are of course friends and fellow countrymen or women with whom Matt collaborated or otherwise shared a stage and/or competed for British Blues Awards through the years, or who performed at a series at benefit concerts for Matt’s medical care during his final year, including the likes of Dom Martin, Alice Armstrong, Elles Bailey, The Cinelli Brothers, Chantel MacGregor, Will Wilde, Katie Bradley, When Rivers Meet, and Brave Rival, among others. But Matt’s talents also of course caught the ears of several international bluesmen during his career, including Walter Trout and Joe Bonamassa, who both contribute guitar on different songs here, the only two tracks to feature Matt’s vocals (and let us tell you: it’s great to be able to hear Matt again!).
You couldn’t ask for a better opening track for this set than the powerful, gripping “Broken Man” with Bonamassa on guitar (as well as some superb backing vocals from Lisa Mann), although Matt’s vocals so early on do set a pretty high bar for the rest of the project. Fortunately, many of the other artists, particularly some of the females, are very much up to the challenge, including Chantel McGregor, whose vocals and acoustic guitar make the solo “Forevermore and Again” even sweeter of a song than the original; Elles Bailey, with an uplifting (both lyrically and musically), gritty-vocaled “Better Days” on which she’s joined by The Cinelli Brothers and some swinging horns, with Paul Jones on harmonica; the smoky-voiced Grace Bond (vocals and mandolin) of When Rivers Meet with a hypnotic “Soulbreaker”; and 2025 European Blues Challenge winner/International Blues Challenge semi-finalist Alice Armstrong, who, aided by members of Catfish and its successor following Matt’s death (Burning Rope) and some airy backing vocals, delivers a crisp, swaying “Archangel” that also includes a guitar solo from Nat Martin, one of a pair of Matt’s guitar tutors from the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford to contribute solos to the project.
Among the tracks from male vocalists that stand out the most are the soaring, driving “Take It All” from Blue Nation and an expressive “So” from a solo Dom Martin, along with, of course, the other track that features Matt on vocals (as well as guitar this time): the hauntingly powerful “All I Ask of You” that also includes a stirring guitar solo from Walter Trout.
And we can’t leave out the closing, Will Wilde-led “With A Little Help from My Friends” from which the album takes its title, an encore song from one of the benefit concerts for Matt that includes Matt on guitar along with the night’s other performers, including Brave Rival, The Cinelli Brothers and Ben Poole.
There’s still plenty more good stuff to be heard here, with the remainder of the tracks mostly on the harder rocking side in such numbers as “Exile” (Sean Webster), “Hit the Ground Running” (The Cinelli Brothers), “Up in Smoke” (Brave Rival) and “Have My Say” (Zac Schulze Gang).
Not only is the music fantastic, with a great Alice Armstong-designed album cover that shows Matt’s silhouette filled with photos of him with his various artist friends, but all proceeds from the sale of the album will go to the cancer ward at Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford, where Matt received treatment. So this is definitely one worth picking up: if you’re already a fan of Matt’s, to hear him sing and play one last time and to hear so many talented others performing his songs in a show of the respect they had for him, or, if you are new to Matt, as an introduction to him and his music before you go seeking more of it, as we suspect will be the case. He may not have been around nearly as long as the King of the Blues, but both the level of participation and quality of the tracks on this tribute album are proof that to have known Matt Long really was to love him.