New
Releases
Ray Bonneville, Gust of Wind (Stony Plain)
The Rockin' Highliners, Oh My!
David Gogo, Bare Bones, The Acoustic
Blues (Ragged Pup Records)
First Nation bluesman David Gogo is from Nanaimo and is best known
for leading a power trio, as documented on his first two albums.
Bare Bones, The Acoustic Blues on Ragged
Pup Records proves he's no slouch on quieter material. That material is
four originals, and songs from such varied sources as
Bukka White, Bob Dylan, Johnny Winter, Tom Waits
and Captain Beefheart. Gogo plays National Steel and a Gibson LG-1
and is supported wonderfully by John
Forrest on acoustic bass. Highlights are Bukka's "Aberdeen" and his
own "Western Coast". His strong vocals make the mix of styles work for
the most part but he tries too hard to sound like the vocalists he's
covering, especially obvious on "Crazy Little Thing" by Captain Beefheart. Still, I hope he
can continue to do both kinds of albums. Ragged
Pup has Festival Distribution.
Blues Party (Peerless Records)
Willie "Big Eyes" Smith (Jook Joint Records)
The Toronto-Chicago connection is once again up next with
Willie "Big Eyes" Smith. He is
best known as Muddy Waters' drummer of many
years but was a vocalist and harmonica player before
then. That whole band parted with Muddy and became
The Legendary Blues Band and he was its featured vocalist for
Money Talks on Ichiban. Nothin' But The
Blues is his second album since then as a leader.
It's on Jook Joint Records, a new label started by
Andrew and Jennifer Kempa of Musican Enterprises and recorded
with The Northern Blues Legends: Al Lerman (who also
produced), Morgan Davis, Kevin Higgins, Tyler Yarema
& Alec Fraser. There were two sessions,
one at The Silver Dollar and the other at the Blue Goose and the result is a fine
album with only a couple of overworked songs for those of us who have far more
albums of Chicago blues than is healthy. Smith's impassioned vocals get sterling
support from the Legends and of course everything is powered by one of the best
drummers in the business. The seven Blue Goose songs
were done without an audience and open the album;
the remaining Silver Dollar songs obviously have
an appreciative audience. The result is a
satisfying hour's listening, something unusual in this
house where the remote control is close at hand.
"Rock This House" picks up the pace at a beautiful
spot. Other highlights are "I Can't Trust You, Man",
Sittin' Here Drinkin'" and "Blues And Trouble". If
you enjoyed the Snooky Pryor and Little
Mack Simmons collaborations on Electro-Fi, this
one belongs right beside them. The CD release is on
June 18 at The Silver Dollar and Musican has
arranged other dates for Willie as well, check Where It's At.
- John Valenteyn, jayvee@ican.net
Montreal's Ray Bonneville is now a Stony
Plain artist. That alone should help make his music
more widely available and his third album, Gust Of
Wind, is going to be a huge help. Produced by
Colin Linden, the eleven strong compositions stay in
the rootsy swamp blues sound that Bonneville,
Tony Joe White and J. J. Cale have done so well
with. The Colin Linden/Ken Whiteley sound is
evident in a few songs as well. This all makes for a
blues-friendly, hopefully commercial radio-friendly
CD. "That's Why", "The Price To Pay" and "Canary
Yellow Car" will keep blues radio happy but if "Don't
Look Back" or "The Changing Sky", let alone the
title track, are not all over radio there is no justice.
The Rockin' Highliners have taken their TBS
Talent Search honours further than any of the
other winners: they tour continuously and their
third album is on Stony Plain with Duke
Robillard as producer, who calls himself a member of the
band. Oh My! is 11 new originals plus T-Bone
Walker's "Two Bones And A Pick" and "Come On
Let's Boogie" from an unknown writer. Duke guests
on guitar and Ron Caset on keyboards and
accordion but most of these songs will only extend
their reputation as a live act. Notable exceptions
from the party time jump blues are the acoustic
"Three Days On The Coast", a second instrumental, "Pac
A Lulu" and a nine minute, sound effects-and- accordion-laden "North Sea Fishermen's
Blues", with only one verse, sung in English by Robert
Tycholis and then in French by an anonymous
female voice, maybe the psychedelic era is
returning. Robillard's studio smarts gives this CD a polish
the others didn't have but wisely he doesn't tamper
too much with the band's sound. The cover art was
done in Memphis by Lamar Sorrento and is
available as a poster.
As part of their 5th Anniversary celebrations,
Peerless Records is going to make the CD
pictured here obsolete. Blues Party contains twelve
songs selected from Peerless albums and it will be
joined next month by Blues On The Radio, a thirteen
song compilation. Together they will trumpet mostly Canadian
artists around the world. That's the old model. The new one will
trumpet these twenty-five songs on a downloadable jukebox on
Peerless' website, www.peerlessmusic.com. You
will be able to listen in and assemble your own CD or order entire artists'
CD's. How you do this is one of the items in
e-blues this issue, what you can listen to comes here.
Peerless' current catalogue features three albums from
Powder Blues: Live At Montreux, Greatest Hits
and Let's Get Loose, from Tom
Lavin's Blue Wave Productions in Vancouver as well as two new
Wailin' Walker Band productions, Buzz
Saw Boogie and one just finishing, to be called
Wait A Minute. A second, intriguing, set of albums are indies licensed from the artists and
re-mixed: The Boppin' Blues Band's Sold
Out, The Cal Batchelor Band's Now
Playing, Ernest Lee & Cotton
Traffic's Rhythm & Rhyme,
Winston Gibb & The Hot Dogs' Hot Off The
Grill, the Jimmy Dewrance Blues Band's
Too Gone Blue and Nitecry's Too Cool To Be
Blue. Kingston's Georgette Fry will have her first album,
Rites Of Passage, available again soon. It seems a little
unfair to talk about these albums, as I have the indies
at hand and Fred Xavier, Peerless' President
assures me the work done by Peter Moore at The
E-room here has dramatically updated the sound, and
Blues Party indeed sounds very good. But I do want
to make some comments on the albums because this is fine modern blues and many of the names
might be unfamiliar to you. The Boppin' Blues
Band are from Sherbrooke, PQ and Sold
Out, contains the best of two self-produced albums.
Cal Batchelor is back in Vancouver after
performing in England for ten years. He's a guitarist, singer
and a fine songwriter-his "Blues On The Radio"
gives the second compilation CD its name. Ernest Lee
is originally from the Maritimes and has spent
many years in the clubs here. Not all of his work is
blues and this is true of his Surrey, BC-recorded album
as well. The blues songs are very good though and
he'll be leading the Acoustic Jam on Tuesdays at The
Black Swan this month. Name notwithstanding,
Winston Gibb & The Hot Dogs is built around the
singing, songwriting and keyboards of Peter John
Pringle, also of Surrey, BC. The setting in the artwork is
The Surreal Cafe but this is a straight forward album
of original songs. Jimmy Dewrance is a
Vancouver-born harp player now resident in the Bay Area
and his is the most traditional-sounding album here.
He has also perhaps put himself in the toughest
possible competition with his harp-led jump blues.
Nitecry is a veteran six-piece band from San Jose, CA,
with two guitars, keys, sax, bass & drums and very
good vocals. They write excellent modern blues songs
on an album produced by Joe Louis Walker who
also plays on two. I hope this new model works for Peerless and for that to happen, of course, you
have to go to the website with the necessary
software. One of the biggest problems for artists putting
out their own albums is getting the word out. I
hadn't heard of five of these albums myself until I
received the compilation. This is definitely a big step forward.
Toronto Blues Society Copyright _ 1999