There’s a whole lot to like about Krystle Warren‘s latest album Three the Hard Way (Parlour Door Music) and blues is just a small part of it, with the album also including sounds of neosoul, R&B, hip hop, folk, jazz, gospel, and more.
Here’s one of the bluesier tunes off that project, the creeping “Nae-Nae and Ruthie”, with handclap-like percussion, gritty harmonica, subtle keys and guitar work, and Warren’s smooth yet sturdy, full-ranged vocals all combining to create a dark haunting groove.
If that leaves you looking for a little more from the album, you might start with the powerful, passionate “Thanks and Praise”; the slightly breezy, Beatles-esque “Get a Load”; the closing soul gospel of “Move”; or the slow, stirring “Red Clay”, a jazzy, soulful number regarding the weighty topic of a 1921 Tulsa, Oklahoma, race riot during which an African-American community was destroyed by the KKK.
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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.