New Releases
Mel Brown recorded for Impulse in the 60's, was
Bobby Blue Bland's longtime guitarist and then was a longtime member of the
Antone's House Band in Austin, TX. He has lived in Kitchener for years and his name has never appeared in this column! Now, suddenly he's on two albums!! First up is the new
Snooky Pryor album for Electro-Fi Records. You may recall or even been at the party at the Silver Dollar last year celebrating Snooky's retirement. Well, judging by his performance on
Can't Stop Blowin', that was premature at best-at 77 years of age, he's pulling out all the stops here. He brought a packet of new songs and his harps and a team was assembled here that included
Mel Brown, Morgan Davis and Teddy
Leonard on guitars, Tyler Yarema and
Michael Fonfara on keyboards and Mike Fitzpatrick
on drums. With one exception, Tyler and Morgan play together on six songs and Mel & Michael on five, Teddy appears on one and Snooky does the last one alone. The two "teams" alternate through the songs on the CD and stay firmly in a supportive role until called upon to
solo, leaving the spotlight squarely on Snooky and he doesn't disappoint.
Mel Brown is on only one song on Snooky's three Antone's albums but they must have put in many evenings at the club-their interplay is that good. A wonderful addition to the growing Electro-Fi catalogue. Blind Pig have a new Snooky CD coming as well-some retirement!
Mel's own album is available now too, recorded at his regular gig in Guelph. Live At Wally's is with his fine trio: John Lee on keys, Al on bass & Jim Boudreau on drums with David Wiffen guesting on sax and features Mel on vocals. Considering that he rarely speaks, the fact that he sings makes this something of a milestone. I shouldn't think he'll want to put his guitar down any time soon but he mostly stays within his range and gets the job done. John Lee takes the vocal on one song. The ten songs are all covers and the production, by Mel and Dave Ellerson, succeeds in putting you right there in the club. If you want Mel Brown And The Homewreckers in your listening room, though, you might have to go to Guelph on a Thursday night to do it. I don't know if any distribution beyond that is in place.
Larry Dickinson is from Allenford, near Owen Sound and his new CD,
No More Stormy Weather is at hand. He describes his music as blues rock and it certainly is that. He plays acoustic guitar and flute,which combined with three electric guitarists, gives much of it a
Jethro Tull-like sound. Some members of The
Bearcats help out and "Low Down Blues" & "Mad Dog Blues" show that Dickinson & Company can rock the blues as well as anyone. Available from
Roomservice Records, RR #1 Allenford, ON, N0H 1A0,
Ikdick@log.on.ca.
From Rounder/Polygram comes Rory Block's 13th album, Confessions Of A Blues Singer. Her early albums mixed country blues with songs in other styles and it has only been recently that the number of blues songs increased. On this one, there are 9 that open the album and then, after a slide intro, the two long songs that give the album its title. One is about her mentor and the second about herself. Both rather reminded me of Joni Mitchell. The blues songs are nicely done-she chose a different way to record, going with live off the floor takes. The results are less overwrought, more relaxed. Eddie Clearwater's last album was a self-produced and financed Mean Case Of The Blues that Bullseye Blues licensed. So Cool Blues Walk is the first official one for the label and while the last one was pretty good, a bigger budget can do things like get you Duke Robillard and his band with a horn section. Some pretty good songs too. Get it!
Three from Delmark/Festival: Lurrie Bell's 3rd for the label, Kiss Of Sweet Blues, is produced by Dave Specter, whose band plays throughout and whose members supply all but one of the 15 songs. This makes for lots of original material but I found my fingers hitting the skip button pretty quickly. Maybe after some touring the songs will sound better. Willie Kent does not have this problem. Make Room For The Blues has all new songs that already feel lived in. The only question I have is why James Wheeler is not present. His place is taken by Billy Flynn & Jake Dawson who are very good but James & Willie Davis are the best two guitar team in blues right now and they were both there playing these songs in Helena last month. P.S. Don't tell anyone but this may be the first Delmark blues album with strings! Tad Robinson's second solo release, Last Go Round, is bit different for Delmark - he's a blue-eyed soul man who writes great songs and plays harp, his guitar player is William Clarke & Rod Piazza alumnus Alex Schultz, piano man Kevin McKendree is now with Delbert McClinton and Harlan Terson & Jon Miller are a very good Chicago rhythm section. The result is not a Chicago Blues album but a very good one with lots of Los Angeles swing blues flavour.
From Hightone/Festival this month comes a must-have album for fans of Delta slide guitar. Bottleneck Blues is a compilation of Pete Welding and Dr. David Evans field recordings that were intended for an LP on Testament that was not released at the time. For the CD era, the track list is now 22 strong, with Johnny Shines, Robert Nighthawk, Fred McDowell and many more all previously unavailable.
Last and in this case, certainly least: Severn Records is a new label out of Maryland that released a fine Darrell Nulisch album, The Whole Truth. Just available now from the label is Servin' It Up with the organist on that album, Benjie Porecki, leading the band. The only change is Alex Schultz takes Jon Moeller's place on guitar. The result is an all-instrumental, B3-dominated sound that has little to do with blues and a lot to do with out-of-the-way cocktail lounges. They sent two copies, I guess they knew I'd throw the first one away.
- John Valenteyn jayvee@ican.net