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March
2008
Harry
Manx & Friends
Live at the Glenn Gould
Studio Dog My Cat/Fusion
Even though one of the friends is Kevin Breit, this one should be seen not so much as a live In Good We Trust as a live successor to Mantras for Madmen. It may even have been recorded before the Stony Plain CD & tour. He wrote in Mantras that he sees Indian music as Heaven and the blues as Earth and his previous albums were more of one or more of the other. Here he shows he is increasingly trying to blend the two, perhaps using Kevin on guitar is an attempt to draw that previously separate thread as well into a new whole. Steve Marriner is on harmonica, George Koller on bass, Ravi Naimpally on tabla or other percussion and Samidha Joglekar on harmony vocals. The songs they play are the bluesiest in a while: “Take This Hammer”, “Voodoo Chile” and “Good Time Charlie” (from Jubilee) and especially Muddy’s “Can’t Be Satisfied”. This last has Marriner using one of Kevin Breit’s favourite devices of quoting famous songs in a memorable harp solo. They are all obviously having fun. “Single Spark” is much bluesier here than on Mantras and is the better for it, I think. Indian music returns with a vengeance on “Samidha’s Tune”, with Ms. Joglekar singing gorgeously. But then Marriner gets a stunning amplified harp solo and Koller a bowed bass solo as the band slips seamlessly into J.J. Cale’s “Tijuana”. The two songs have a digital separation point but it makes for a jaw-dropping, sixteen-minute set closer. The emphasis here is generally much more on the songs, the two guitarists saving the fireworks for their duo shows and are much more subtle here. This is much more of an ensemble effort and makes for a rather different listening experience. It may be time, though, to work up some new songs, as “Take This Hammer” and “Can’t Be Satisfied” are both on the last live album, Road Ragas, albeit as solo performances.
Rita
Chiarelli
Uptown Goes Downtown: Rita Chiarelli
with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra Mad Iris/Festival
A couple of years ago, Rita Chiarelli, who has a home near Thunder Bay, had the occasion to perform with the orchestra. The response was so enthusiastic that plans were made to make the show a permanent entity. Those details are in our lead story and that CD will be out at the end of the month. Although it includes songs from her earlier albums, including a couple from Cuore, in Italian of course, these plus the new ones are so well chosen, the arrangements so fresh and Chiarelli’s singing so persuasive that any complaints are quickly forgotten. Jason Caslor is the conductor and no doubt had an easier time coping with blues in a symphonic setting with his background as a sax player in a big band. Joseph Phillips’ orchestrations utilize the resources of an orchestra most effectively. In addition to his role in Rita’s band, he plays in the London Symphony. We’ve all heard songs with studio orchestras ‘sweetening’ the sound but there is none of that here. The brass section particularly gets a lot of work and he understands that it is not the same as the horn section of a big band – it has different possibilities and he uses them. The CD opens with her own “I Can Change For You”, from Breakfast at Midnight, as is “Loving You (Is Killing Me)” and I’m sure long time fans will be as amazed as I was with the new versions. “Serves You Right”, from Road Rockets, also thrives on the makeover. B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone”, from No-One To Blame, is almost a different song. “Back To Blue” is also the title song of Rita’s next CD. It’ll serve as a sneak preview, unless of course you see her live. She’s working these songs into her show and you can check for one near you at www.ritachiarelli.com. A new original, “You Don’t Say”, is a gorgeous ballad and a fitting closer to the CD. The audience loved it and you will too. Uptown doesn’t go downtown very often but maybe there’ll be more now that such excellent results can be achieved. The recorded sound is very good, if somewhat “roomy”. You can pre-order your copy at her web site, or you can wait until it comes out. But you should get it, it’s not often you get blues served in a tuxedo.
Slidin’
Clyde Roulette Band
Let’s Take A Ride SCR
When Priscilla’s Revenge dropped by during the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards last December they were raving about a slide guitar player and his band they were on the bill with. It was The Slidin’ Clyde Roulette Band and their Let’s Take A Ride was voted the Best Blues Album. The well-traveled but Winnipeg-based Roulette calls himself “the Ojibwe combination of Muddy Waters and Chet Atkins” and got his nickname from Big Dave McLean. He writes the original songs and is the vocalist. Mel Reimer is on harp, Jeff Smook on bass and Ken McMahon, a former Rockin’ Highliner, is on drums. Roulette’s take on the aboriginal experience provides two of the CD’s highlights in “Redman” and “Long Way From Home”. “Redman” uses the “Mannish Boy” riff as he charts the history of the red man vs. the white man. “I Went Down To Memphis” is a well-written song about the players he encountered there. There are also fine versions of Sleepy John Estes’ “Goin’ To Brownsville” and Johnny Taylor’s “Still Called The Blues”. According to www.clyderoulette.com, they’re taking some time off from touring to record the next album - this one certainly makes one hope it doesn’t take too long.
Peter
Lazz & Paul Fenton
Rattlesnakin’ Daddy Self
You may not know Peter “Lazz” Lazazzera, who is a traditional country blues artist following in the footsteps of John Hammond. Paul Fenton you probably do know, a blues-rock slide guitar master. Lazz is Domenic Troiano’s cousin and he was part of a duo that opened for Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee at the Riverboat in Yorkville. He has since spent many years abroad, in Germany and Singapore to name but two places before returning and settling in Cumberland, a town between Ottawa and Montreal. The self-advertised aim of this recording was to ram the two styles together and see what happens. Well, what happened is a showcase for Fenton’s slide wizardry. I suspect the live off the floor recording is partly to blame but Lazz’s vocals are no match for Fenton’s guitar in terms of presence and in this contest he comes off second best. He does a good job with some traditional and perhaps overdone blues songs but in every song you are drawn to Fenton’s inventive slide playing. It may be that the stricter settings have given Fenton a challenge. The song that works best overall is Lonnie Mack’s “Satisfy My Suzie”, maybe because it was already a rocker. Blind Boy Fuller’s “Rattlesnakin’ Daddy”, Sonny Boy Williamson (II)’s “Checking On My Baby” and particularly Tampa Red’s “Stranger Blues” are already receiving airplay, my comments notwithstanding, and so you may be hearing more of this CD. Robert Johnson’s “Queen of Spades” sees Fenton on a National but Matt Wood can’t or won’t soften his drumming and an opportunity is lost. www.paulfenton.com has lots of info and samples.
B.B.
King
Live DVD & CD
Geffen/Universal
Over B.B. King’s long career with Universal Music and its affiliated companies, he has only rarely recorded with his own band. Even on previous live albums, the need was felt to focus on the star of the show. This time the camaraderie of a group of men who spend as much as three hundred days a year together is allowed to shine through. The proceedings are captured in an intimate setting, in high definition video and surround sound, allowing you to have a superb B.B. King show in your own living room. Recorded at the B.B. King clubs in Memphis and Nashville over four nights in October 2006, the DVD opens with two instrumentals by the band before that famous intro. After a little reminder that his last live recording was on the same stage in Memphis, thirteen years before with a lot of guests for the Blues Summit DVD, he launches into “Why I Sing The Blues”. The CD has four fewer songs in the main set, taken mostly from the middle portion of a typical show where the horn players take a break, and where B.B. gets into genial exchanges with his adoring audience – the kind of thing that works much better visually. Unfortunately they also delete much of B.B.’s between songs patter. My favourites from the show are “Bluesman” and “Key To The Highway” (“I’m gonna do this ‘til the day I die”), that last one reminding me that the one album he has not yet done in his sixty-year career is a country blues album. B.B. has a lot of fun throughout, introducing the band, doing a Pepticon commercial that he remembered from his WDIA days (“good for whatever ails you, even before Viagra”), the lengthy but hugely enjoyable “Just Like A Woman” with its audience reaction, a version of “You Are My Sunshine” and, after a set of thank yous so long it seems he doesn’t expect to do it ever again, he hits “When The Saints Go Marching In” for an encore. After you watch the two-hour show, make sure you go to the Message from B.B. King. In words this time, he explains why he sings the blues and, despite his apologies to the contrary, he is very eloquent indeed. There is also a fifteen-minute “Making of” documentary that is partly biographical and exceptionally well done. One clip compared the audience here to the one in Live At The Regal, one of the most famous of all live albums, let alone blues ones (or B.B.’s) and the audience, a much different audience, is certainly hugely important to the show and to B.B. B.B.’s aim was to make an intimate show available to everyone. I think he succeeded admirably.
- John Valenteyn, jvalenteyn8724@rogers.com
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