Regardless of what shopping you may or may not have planned for this Black Friday, you might want to work in a visit to a local vinyl store or four to bag some bluesy Record Store Day (RSD) Black Friday exclusives from a few of the genre’s all-time greats. Here are a couple to look for.
T-Bone Walker – T-Bone Blues (Rhino Records)
You can’t go wrong adding this classic (originally released in 1959) to your collection, including such famous T-Bone hits as “Mean Old World”, “Call It Stormy Monday”, “T-Bone Shuffle” and “Papa Ain’t Salty”. Those songs alone would be enough to make this album worth owning, but this superb set truly is “all killer, no filler”, with other tracks including the strolling “T-Bone Blues”, swinging instrumentals “Two Bones and a Pick” and “Shufflin’ the Blues”, and a slithering “Play On Little Girl” (one of two tracks here on which T-Bone is backed by Junior Wells on harmonica, Jimmy Rogers on guitar, and likely Willie Dixon on bass and Francis Clay on drums), among others.
It’s hard not to like the latest volume of tracks from the Joe Bonamassa/Josh Smith-produced B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100, with guests that include such greats as Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, and Larry McCray. Released last week, Volume 3 kicks off with a patient yet impassioned “Sweet Little Angel” that features Buddy Guy on vocals and guitar and wraps up with singer/guitarist Larry McCray‘s soulful take on “When It All Comes Down (I’ll Still Be Around)”.
In between, you’ll hear Larkin Poe with a swinging “Don’t You Want a Man Like Me” filled with smoky vocals and gritty lap steel guitar, a grooving “Heartbreaker” with Trombone Shorty on vocals and horns and Eric Gales on guitar, and a shuffling “Watch Yourself” with Jimmie Vaughan on vocals and guitar that’s just perfect for Jimmie.
This latest installment also brings with it news of a few other big names participating in the project, with the revelation of a Chaka Khan/Eric Clapton collaboration on King’s hit “The Thrill is Gone” for inclusion on the 32-song tribute to the King of the Blues.
Here’s a video for the Buddy Guy track that also features some terrific photos and footage of longtime friends Guy and King performing through the years.
We’ll be telling you more about the latest volume of tracks from the Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith-produced tribute to B.B. King here sometime soon but, in the meantime, here’s one that could easily have been a part of the project, even featuring Bonamassa on guitar just like the B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100 tracks. But instead of being a cover of one of B.B.’s songs like on the tribute project, it’s a cover of a track that namechecks the late King of the Blues, performed here by another late, great bluesman, who also did some magnificent work on the keys over the decades with the likes of Taj Mahal and the Phantom Blues Band, Etta James, Bonnie Raitt, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Dave Mason, and others.
The first single from the solo album on which Mike Finnigan was working at the time of his passing (an album about which you’ll also no doubt be hearing plenty more from us, being that Finnigan has long been one of the artists we’ve most appreciated and respected), here’s Finnigan–joined by Bonamassa–with a smashing take on Curtis Salgado’s “20 Years of B.B. King” that finds Finnigan’s much-missed soulful vocals and masterful playing on full display!
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A collection of Nine Below Zero‘s best blues tracks recorded over the last two decades, you say? Entitled Blues Power Volume 1? Ok, that’s probably something we here at The BluesPowR Blog are going to need to tell you about…
Featuring a dozen tracks not previously available on vinyl, Blues Power Volume 1 combines unreleased material and some of the band’s finest blues performances, as selected, remixed and remastered by Wayne Proctor (who first caught our ear as a drummer with the Oli Brown Band and King King, among others, and has since held our ear as a producer/engineer, including having worked some nice magic mastering Nine Below’s long lost first studio album Back in the Day some four decades after its recording) at his House of Tone studio, making this another must-own collection from the long-running blues outfit.
With its soulful seasoned vocals and rich grooves, the breezy lead-off track, Little Milton’s “That’s What Love Will Make You Do”, alone is probably enough to justify the purchase of this first-ever blues compilation from the band, but you’re still going to want to take the time to listen to the rest of the album because there’s plenty more great stuff to be heard–with lots of tasty licks from founding members Dennis Greaves on guitar and Mark Feltham on harmonica–including, most notably, a catchy shuffling “Blues is Here to Stay” (Eddie Boyd), driving “I Wanna Be Loved” (Muddy Waters), and slinking, harmonica-driven instrumental “The Toddle” (Little Walter).
We weren’t familiar with the name Caitlin Krisko before an email about her new single hit our inbox recently, but we have to say that we like what we heard, and think you will too. With soulful, powerhouse vocals from Caitlin and some hard grooves from her colleagues, Caitlin and her band The Broadcast are, like the woman about whom she sings here, “making a scene” with this gritty, Southern-rocking “Let It Ride” from their upcoming album Heirloom.
We don’t get to Chicago as much as we’d like, so we’re always glad when we can get Chicago to come to us, be it in the form of a touring Chicago act coming to our area, a weekend livestream from Rosa’s Lounge (check out the club’s YouTube site; they’ve got plenty of shows available to enjoy on-demand, even though they’ve taken a break from streaming these past few weekends), or a live recording of a Chicago band captured at a Chicago-area club, such as this one from Dave Specter, which will have you feeling like you just caught a dynamite set from the guitarist/singer and his band at one of the Windy City’s premier music halls.
The baker’s dozen of tracks on Live at SPACE (Delmark Records) kicks off with two instrumentals: a breezy, swinging-and-swaying “Rumba & Tonic” that starts with some Otis Rush-style licks before giving way to the Spanish sounds to which its title refers, followed by the tough, strolling “Alley Walk”, providing an excellent chance to hear Specter and his top-notch band (Brother John Kattke on keys, Rodrigo Mantovani on bass, and Marty Binder on drums) musically before they launch into covers such as Otis Rush’s “Homework” and Allen Touissaint’s creeping “On Your Way Down” (where you meet the same people you did on your way up) in addition to Specter’s own “Blues from the Inside Out”, all sung by Specter in a crisp, biting manner similar to that of New England counterpart Duke Robillard.
Posted inAlbums|TaggedBrother John Kattke, Dave Specter|Comments Off on Make some space on your music shelf for this delightful live recording from Dave Specter
We mentioned this project on our social media channels earlier this week, but couldn’t resist coming back for a bit deeper of a dive. As terrific as this centennial birthday tribute collection to the late B.B. King looks on screen or paper–with tracks featuring Buddy Guy, Shemekia Copeland, Gary Clark Jr., Bobby Rush, Jimmie Vaughan, Kirk Fletcher, George Benson, Kim Wilson, Keb’ Mo’, Trombone Shorty and Eric Gales, Ivan Neville, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Paul Rodgers, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, and many others–, it only gets better when you hear it, at least in the case of the first handful of tracks available from the set.
Each of these initial tracks is superb, starting off with a shuffling “Why I Sing the Blues” that features vocals and harmonica (along with some kind words about B.B.) from Bobby Rush. That’s followed by a killer “To Know You is to Love You” from Michael McDonald, Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, on which you’ll hear some stellar play between keyboards, horns, and Trucks’ guitar, as Tedeschi and McDonald exchange burning vocals.
What sweeter way to head into the weekend than this snack-inspired track from late singer/guitarist Lonnie Mack?
The first single from a rare live recording set for release in October (Lonnie Mack: Live in Louisville 1992, Last Music Co.), “Oreo Cookie Blues” is a lip-smacking, highly entertaining reminder of what made Mack such an influence on players including the likes of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and countless others.
Enjoy!
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We don’t know that the Bentonia style of blues would ever have been considered exactly popular, although folks were probably at least a bit more familiar with it back in the days of Skip James. Only a few others have really been known for the style, including the likes of Henry Stuckey, Jack Owens (who, along with James, was taught to play by Stuckey), and, in turn, an Owens protege by the name of Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, who was once thought to be the last living link to the Bentonia blues.
But like those others before him, the 78-year-old Holmes is determined to not let the style end with him, having spent the last five-plus decades helping to promote the blues through both his long-running Bentonia Blues Festival and as proprietor of Bentonia’s Blue Front Cafe, established by Holmes’ parents in the late-1940s and now believed to be the oldest operating blues club in Mississippi. Holmes frequently can be seen sitting in with acts playing the Blue Front, and has served as a mentor to younger musicians interested in the Bentonia style from near and far, including, for example, Bolton, Mississippi product-now-based-in-Canada Robert Connely Farr and another guy from up north in Rhode Islander Ryan Lee Crosby.
Back in June, we previewed the first single from Crosby’s new album At the Blue Front, recorded, of course, at Holmes’ Blue Front Cafe, with Holmes even sitting in on guitar and vocals for half of the tracks. We’re pleased to report that the rest of the album is just as excellent as that first single we shared with you, with Crosby and Holmes taking on traditional numbers such as the opening, slow-chugging “Going Away” (complete with train whistle and all) and the creeping “Hard Times”, “Slow Down”, and “Tell Me” in addition to the “Catfish” about which we previously told you, incorporating some new music and lyrics along the way, as well as original tunes from Crosby in the shuffling “I’m Gonna Change” with its particularly poignant guitar, a “Mistreating People” that delves even further into Skip James territory with Crosby’s falsetto vocals, and a bit more uptempo “I’ve Been Worried”.
If you’re already looking ahead to the long weekend, here’s a little something to help hold you over until then, a searing, surf-rock style instrumental take on the Sam & Dave classic “Hold On, I’m Coming” from Boston-based blues trio GA-20, who, for the first time, invited a few friends to join them on organ and bass. The lead single off the band’s upcoming album Orphans, this one says “Hold On, I’m Coming” without actually saying “Hold On, I’m Coming”!
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