New Releases -
February 2000
The Pie Guys The Pie Guys' 5th Anniversary-Live At The Blue
Goose /Indie
The title just about covers it-a celebratory recording of one of our more renowned Sunday jams. The Pie Guys are Rod Phillips, B3 & vocals; Dave Antonacci, bass & vocals and Greg Anzelc, drums & vocals; Joe Reynolds and Jim Lawless of the Meteors are the band's special guests on trumpet and tenor sax respectively. The CD is programmed to place you in the club, with an instrumental to start off and then a vocal from Phillips with guest vocalists sitting in after that. Reynolds, Jay Douglas, Johnny Wright, Chris Kenny, Sterling Jarvis (of the Beat Kings) and Phil Naro all contribute lead vocals before the 45 minutes "set" finishes. A long list of other guests including guitar players and background vocalists is in the CD booklet but they are not credited for the song(s) on which they appear (it was too hard to keep track). By my count, a total of some 30 different folks were on stage for this event! The proceedings were captured by Steve Grisbrook on ADAT and the sound, while slightly bassy and muddy at times, is quite good for a live recording of this complexity. This jam isn't always a blues jam and some of the songs here are R&B standards but Douglas' "Ba Babe Blues" (an original) and Kenny's "I'm Ready" are particular highlights. I hope releases like this continue to happen-it's the only way some veteran performers are going to get recorded and it's a great piece of our music history. Available only at the club for now and the whole thing with largely the same cast happens again for the 6th anniversary on February 13!
Boppin' Blues Band Happy Go Lucky PMG-03/Indie
This is the third indie release for this Eastern Townships-based sextet and it's full of fine original songs mostly by leader Michel Goudreau who sings and plays guitars and produced. The other original member, Richard Bergeron, is on drums; Peter Brown, piano; Jacques Jobin, bass; Dany Roy, saxes are here from I Dig My Job and Maxime St. Pierre on trumpet is new on board for this one. Harmonica Zeke guests again, on "Come Home Baby" and the uplifting for blues fans "I Love This Rhythm". A ballad, "I Must Love You" by Peter Brown, and the addition of Mike Goodsell on pedal steel (giving a couple of the other songs a western swing feel) ensure a nice variety to Happy Go Lucky. The title song, "Sensible Shoes", "Swingne Ta Piene" and a couple of jazz instrumentals, Lou Donaldson's "Bad John" and Jimmy Smith's "Jumpin' The Blues" help keep up the "Boppin'" sound - this band and Glamour Puss are both doing showing that the Downchild style of fine party blues is alive and well! Call 819-876-2109 or email at boppin@ailleurs.qc.ca.
Rob Lutes Gravity MMM1250/Indie
Montreal singer-songwriter Lutes was introduced here with the Preservation Records Blues Review a couple of years ago. His "Rob's Red River Blues" was on that compilation and gets a new and slightly longer workout here. Another highlight is "Red Bull Blues" an original with some nice Jackson Delta-style slide guitar from Rob MacDonald. The rest of the album seems more of a piece and while Lutes has his own songwriting voice, the arrangements show the distinctive (and increasingly pervasive) influence of Ray Bonneville, who in fact contributes harmonica to the album. With a voice that reminds me of John Prine, this album is little across the folk side of the line perhaps but definitely worth a listen. His website is www.roblutes.com.
Coco Montoya
Suspicion Alligator ALCD4871/Warner Music
After three solo albums on Blind Pig, Albert Collins and John Mayall alumnus and guitar star Montoya has now joined with Alligator Records for this latest effort at mainstream success. The advance publicity has made no secret of the fact that this album would not be aimed directly at hard core blues fans, not a total surprise to his fans perhaps but not a decision made for every release at Alligator. Ace producer Jim Gaines (Stevie Ray Vaughan, Luther Allison, T-Birds) was brought back on board and he does not disappoint-Montoya's vocals and guitar have never sounded better. Great care was taken in the song selection as well and there are three very good ones: "Get Your Business Straight", by Jeff Healey, "Trading One Fool For Another" by Albert Collins himself and "Nothing But Love", by Montoya and the primary writer Dave Steen, dedicated to Collins. Of the remaining nine, "I Need Your Love In My Life" deserves comment because it seems out of place-it sounds like it belongs on a recent Rolling Stones album. Gaines also produced the Blind Pig albums, so it's the strength of the song selection that makes this Montoya's best yet and as a blues-rock album it's one of the better ones I've heard recently. Not a ringing endorsement perhaps but it's far better than I feared. Lots more info at www.alligator.com.
Little Milton Welcome To Little Milton Malaco MCD 7500/Import
Malaco Records, based in Jackson MS, have had enormous success selling music in the US South. But they have pretty well been restricted to that area and want to expand. They sent along this new album by Little Milton that they hope will achieve that goal. I hope this does it for them because it is a guest-laden album that succeeds. The guests will be familiar to you: Government Mule, Susan Tedeschi, Dave Alvin, Lucinda Williams, Keb' Mo', Peter Wolf, G. Love & Special Sauce and Delbert McClinton! The primary reason it succeeds is each guest has been listening to Little Milton all their lives and realizes that they are in the presence of a master-no ego trips here. Most of the songs were written for this album with the exception of "Mother Earth" by Memphis Slim which features Tedeschi and an opening poem by John Sinclair. "Love Hurts" is the countrified duet with Williams that again suits both singers. The two songs with Warren Haynes et al. sound more "rocky" than Campbell is comfortable with but that doesn't detract much. Having said all that, the best two songs on the album (coincidentally?) are the ones that aren't duets, just Little Milton, "Right To Sing The Blues" and "Lump On Your Stump". One of the liner photos is a town sign that says "Welcome To Little Milton". I can't think of a finer way to introduce yourself to this soul blues legend and Malaco conveniently lists his discography in the notes as well. Get them all!
Various Artists Superharps TelarcBlues 83472/Universal
The latest "supergroup" session from Telarc moves right to the top of the quality list. Four harp masters backed by a fine band with strong material in inspired performances
makes for a sure fire formula for me. James
Cotton, Billy Branch, Charlie
Musselwhite and Sugar Ray Norcia pair off for most of the songs with Norcia and Cotton getting solo
spots and all four playing on the eleven minute plus
tour de force "Harp To Harp". The band is an augmented
Bluetones, Sugar Ray's band, with Kid
Bangham, guitar; Anthony Geraci and David
Maxwell, piano; Michael "Mudcat"
Ward, bass and Per Hanson, drums. Norcia contributes three songs and they are excellent: "I Put My Baby Out", "Life Will
Be Better" and "I'm Gonna Steal Your Baby" help him almost steal the album but for Cotton's "Hucklebuck", Billy Branch's version of "Route 66" and Musselwhite's songs: his section of
the eight-minute plus "Blues, Why Do You Worry Me?" and "If I Should Have Bad Luck" with Cotton. Play often and file proudly beside Alligator's
Harp Attack which also features Cotton and Branch.
- John Valenteyn, jayvee@ican.net
Toronto Blues Society Copyright _ 2000