January
2004
Raoul & the Big Time Cold
Outside Big Time BTRCD-002/Indie Pool
These New Artist Maple Blues Award winners had a well-received first CD that had us all looking forward to this one. Well, it's got special guests, original songs and lots of excitement. Most of all it has Raoul. Actor/musician Raoul Bhaneja is very much in the Rick Estrin of Little Charlie & the Nitecats mold - he provides that same kind of front man stage presence. He doesn't quite have Estrin's vocal/harp chops yet but on the strength of this outing, he'll be there before too long. The Big Time is Darren Gallen on guitar, Cheong Liu on bass and Tom Bona on drums and they are rock solid behind Raoul's harp and vocals. With this instrumentation we're very much in the Rod Piazza/Little Charlie West Coast style of blues and the guest list begins with Junior Watson, one of its foremost guitarists. He adds his distinctive less-is-more style to "Come Back", an original mid tempo song by Raoul & co-producer Terry Wilkins. Mark Hummel, the veteran California harp man, lends his fat tone to "You Got It All" also by Raoul. Big Joe Maher of Big Joe & the Dynaflows fame sits in on drums and duets with Raoul on the jump blues classic "Loving Machine". The songs here aren't all jump blues, though. Raoul penned an old timey song, "Kiss Every Dollar Goodbye" that features fiddler John Showman and "Living in Paradise", a ballad by Raoul and jazz guitarist Jake Langley, features the piano of Graham Guest. "Cold Outside", credited to Raoul, is a slow blues that contains the sophisticated harmonies betraying the hand of Mr. Wilkins, who is perhaps also responsible for its wordless chorus. This song has also been made into a video. "You Got It All" also has some interesting changes for Hummel to work with. Bring on album number three! The launch party is at the Silver Dollar Room on January 16 and their web site is www.raoulandthebigtime.com.
Danny Brooks Soulsville-Souled Out `n
Sanctified HIS House
In many respects, this can be seen as the follow-up to Saved!, NorthernBlues' fine gospel CD of last year. Danny Brooks was a prime mover of that project which, in turn, grew out of his Righteous of a couple of years ago. This time out, though, it's Danny's CD all the way. Hiram Joseph & Amoy Levy are back but providing exemplary backup & chorus vocals with Ciceal Levy and Esther Kessler. The band here is a veteran one with Dennis Pinhorn on various basses; Bucky Berger, drums; Mitch Lewis, guitars; Richard Bell, keyboards and Doug Romanow on accordion & keyboards. Colin Linden and Michael Fonfara guest. The real stars of the CD are Danny's songs. Consistently tuneful and well written, they are a delight to hear. With the exception of the title song, they all re-affirm his commitment to the Lord with every breath & syllable. The opening song, "Soulsville" is also the name of the new Stax museum in Memphis and this no coincidence. The music of the American South has always been the wellspring of Danny's inspiration and this glorious paean should be a hit single. May there be many more! Go to www.dannybrooksmusic.com.
Jay Douglas Retro Blue Deep Jam
Only the third CD for this veteran local singer, Retro Blue finds him in R&B mode. His last CD was Live in Toronto with a horn section and this time out he has an even larger band, recorded over just two nights. The results are equally impressive. Douglas' blend of island music is never very far away and here he has a fine reggae version of "Loving Arms", "But it's alright" and an excellent original, "No Part-time Lover". The other songs are from the quieter pages of R&B history with laid back versions of "He Will Break Your Heart", "At Last" or "You'll never find Another Love like Mine". More lively is the version of "When something is Wrong with My Baby" done as a duet with Michelle C., with her own CD slated for next time. "Funny How the Time slips away", by Willie Nelson, is not quite as memorable as Junior Parker's version but its very close - Douglas at his bluesiest! Both these last CD's are at Sam the Record Man.
Various Artists Live at the Yale Vol.
2 Storman Norman NRM004/Festival
The quality of the Sunday Jams as represented by these highlight CD's almost makes me want to move to Vancouver. Once again a sterling collection is presented, of thirteen performances, some with working bands and others collaborations for the event. Too many stars are here for any kind of list but Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne & Willie MacCalder doing a Boogie Woogie Showdown on Wayne's "My Nadine" is a beauty, as is Jason Buie's "San-Ho-Zay" and James Rogers' "Wanna Go Home". (Rogers' own CD is on deck for the next column.) Oliver & the Elements' "Two Trains" and closer Powder Blues' Cooking with the Blues" have to be on the list as well. Proceeds from the sale of this CD go to building wheelchair accessible trails in Stanley Park and to the Live at the Yale Musician's Trust Fund. You should be able to find this at good stores everywhere but if you can't go to www.theyale.ca.
Harrison Kennedy Sweet Taste Indie
I wrote about an early version of this album (as
Mungumbo Man) about a year ago and urged then that the whole thing come out. Here it is and it has already made
David Barnard's Christmas list. The product of a lengthy acoustic recording session, Kennedy has obviously prepared a stack of excellent original songs. And for a man who was at the centre of R&B as a vocalist for the
Chairmen of the Board in the early `70's, he has turned into a fine blues singer indeed. If you need evidence, check out the autobiographical "Ain't It Enough". The band deserves mention again:
Brian Lee Griffith on acoustic & slide guitar,
Les Smith on harmonica, Tone Valcic on percussion, Pete Rihbany on contrabass, Keith
Lindsay, keyboards and Bruno Farrugia, drums. Get it
www.harrisonkennedy.ca.
Various Artists Martin Scorsese Presents: The Blues, A Musical
Journey Columbia/Legacy C7D 55808/Sony
The seven parts of this journey are now finally available for more considered viewing. The initial reactions from the blues community have been mixed but there was probably no way that this group could
have been completely pleased. I think this is a worthy investment, one that you will return to more than you would for more standard documentaries. The fact that proven feature film directors are our seven tour
guides overcomes the fact that they are not from the blues community. Most every facet of the music, from its African heritage to some of its piano players in show #7, is represented. On DVD, you can pursue each
further at your own speed. For newcomers, who after all were the target group, this should provide hours of entertainment. In
Piano Blues, for example, Clint
Eastwood is interviewing Ray Charles and
Charles mentions the importance in his youth of the
Grand Old Opry broadcasts. Eastwood mentions casually that he filmed there once and we cut away to an excerpt of a performance at the Ryman of a blues (!)
singer with Eastwood playing piano behind her. You have to go to the end credits (this is a lot easier on the DVD's!) to find out that this is from Eastwood's '83 movie
Honkytonk Man and that the singer is Linda
Hopkins. You will then find out that, alas, the soundtrack has never been made available on CD.
Much new music was recorded for the series and that might interest more readers here. Full performances of many of these are included as extras on the DVD's and kudos go to
Casandra Wilson, Lou Reed and Marc
Ribot. If these are not names you read here regularly, that's part of the effort to attract new audiences at work here. The best of the seven is
Soul of a Man by Wim Wenders. The profiles of
these gospel/blues men (there are very few women in the entire series) should boost the interest in
Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James &
J.B. Lenoir. Lenoir is especially well served by the new recordings
but his feature CD does not include the songs featured in his segment. It concentrates on his earlier Chess/Parrot recordings and is in fact the only current CD of them. For his `60's songs, you need to acquire
Vietnam Blues on Evidence (another entertaining and informative search!). Enjoy often.
Various Artists Blues Story Shout! Factory DVD 31226/Sony
For a description of the blues as told by blues performers, this DVD is a must. Expertly assembled by Producer/Director
Jay Levey using Jim O'Neal as consultant, this provides the kind of focused
description that the more impressionistic Scorsese shows could not. This must have been filmed over some time as some of these performers are no longer with us,
Lowell Fulson, to cite just one example, but that kind
of care is evident throughout the show. Thoughtful answers are here for some oft-asked questions, questions that will plague some of these performers forever: e.g.,
Robert Jr. Lockwood about Robert
Johnson. Rufus Thomas' comments are worth the price alone! Five full performances excerpted in the show are provided as extras, including the late
Otha Turner & John Jackson.
Various Artists American Folk Blues Festival, Vol's 1 & 2
Hip-O B0000750 & 751 + CD B00103002/Universal
Complete performances are not extras here, these are all complete and a treasure trove it is. From 1962 to 1970, two German promoters arranged with
Willie Dixon to bring blues performers to
Europe for an extended tour. Recordings and TV shows were part of the package each year. Many of you will be familiar with at least some of the recordings, some currently available as import CD's. The TV shows
disappeared into the archives, until now. Some years, the TV shows were studio efforts and at other times, a concert was taped but full professional crews were used, with talented directors and the travelers were
obviously impressed with their treatment. They give impassioned performances and even do MC duties with aplomb. There are 36 songs on the two DVD's, 16 of them in audio only on the CD, with no duplication with
the tour LP's of the time. So go back in time with
Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Rice
Miller, Sippie Wallace, Lonnie
Johnson, Otis Spann and many more. Our own
Rob Bowman provides the detailed history of the tours and tells me that
Buddy Guy and previously unknown footage of
Little Walter are slated for Volume 3.
With little in the way of blues on DVD or VHS compared to others areas, the Year of the Blues has certainly proved its worth here.
- John Valenteyn,
jvalenteyn8724@rogers.com
Toronto Blues Society Copyright _ 2004