KEEP YOUR HEAD UP Tony Holiday (Forty Below Records) *****
What a delicious, soulful slice of blues from this former Salt Lake City bluesman! Keep Your Head Up is forceful plus slick and greasy in just the right places. Holiday and this loose Memphis collective are building on that city’s rich musical traditions.
Not to be confused with a German pop singer of a similar name, Tony Holiday has been touring his ass off the last couple of years, taking time here and there to write and record with producer Eric Corne. In just 8 tracks Keep Your Head Up covers considerable blues n soul territory. The album opener, She’s A Burglar, is a Freddie King number that kicks the doors wide open and features his friend Eddie 9V on lead guitar & shared vocals. Holiday’s harp work is expressive and dangerous when he whips it out on almost half of the songs, and special guests include AJ Fullerton, Laura Chavez and Albert Castilgia along with Cornea to contribute.
Traditional blues with Memphis style soul is enjoying a resurgence and folks like Tony Holiday are bringing it to the people in a big way. This is music with a big, wide open heart that sure feels fine, originals and covers too. The sound is sharp and spacious, Holiday has soulful pipes, and as the promo sheet says, “mentored by past legends, Holiday and this loose Memphis collective are building on the city’s rich traditions and carrying them forward.” The horns on a cut like Woman Named Trouble also feel like a bit of New Orleans in the mix as well.
Keep Your Head Up ends with the bittersweet country/ Americana flavored I Can Not Feel The Rain, written by Holiday along with Corne and Jad Tariq. Call it soulful blues or bluesy soul… there’s magic in Memphis’s water and Tony Holiday & co are drinking deep. This is one of the most delightful albums of the year.
HOT TRACKS: She’s A Burglar, I Can Not Feel The Rain, Walk On Water
COUGAR The Davidson Trio (independent) *****+
If you look up ‘power trio’ there should be a picture of these guys. Cougar, the band’s debut, is just about as powerful as blues gets. Black Sabbath and Judas Priest are two of my favorite bands, so it’s no surprise to learn that the Davidson Trio comes from Birmingham UK too… gotta be something in the air, or the drinking water- hell, probably both.
The band is led by Owen Davidson, a bassist with a 5 octave vocal range who has played with Uli Jon Roth and Rumour. The group also includes wickedly talented guitarist Ben Bicknell (Owen’s band mate in a Glenn Hughes tribute act called “Black Country Community”) and Ellis Brown on drums. Cougar is blues-powered hard rock, my favorite kind of music with great riffs and inspiring guitar solos, catchy as all hell. “This album is a return to my rock, blues and funk roots” Davidson explains. “I was always into guitarists like Jeff Beck while early in my career I supported Trapeze (Glenn Hughes’ old band before Purple), and I always liked the idea of a power trio. I wanted to write the best possible songs in (that) format.”
The songs on Cougar are loaded with swagger and the bones are meaty, like blues powered metal. Owen’s soulful voice is impressive as is the way he holds down the backbeat with drummer Ellis Brown. I’ve never heard of guitarist Bicknell before but his playing here is a revelation, a cross between Robin Trower and Stevie Ray Vaughan. This is pretty much 4-on-the-floor rock & roll, not complex, and the feel of it reminds me of the last 4 or 5 records former Mountain guitarist Leslie West made. Blues? Yeah. Hard as nails? Fuckin’-A Bubba!
Cougar is an old school record with contemporary production values, and it’s time for me to stop typing so I can sit back, turn it up and bask in the awesomeness. EXCELLENT stuff.
https://www.facebook.com/thedavidsontrio
HOT TRACKS: Medusa Touch, Blue River, Catfish Blues
LOOK OUT HIGHWAY Charlie Musselwhite (Forty Below Records) *****`
When it comes to blues harp, Charlie Musselwhite is one mean motherfucker. At 81 years old this cat has been there and done that more than once. Look Out Highway is the latest in a long line of Musselwhite records in his seemingly effortless blend of Delta and Chicago blues. It’s the first time he’s recorded with his long-time touring band, and the results are pure gold.
Charlie has had an impressive career preaching his particular brand of blues; 13 Grammy nominations and 33 Blues Music Awards nods tell the tale. From the first notes to the last, Look Out Highway is a prime example of what Musselwhite does best; blowing spine-tingling harp over righteous grooves. His band includes guitarist Matt Stubbs (GA-20), drummer June Core (Robert Lockwood Jr.) and bassist Randy Bermudes (James Cotton). The album was recorded at Kid Andersen’s Greaseland Studio in San Jose with guitarist Andersen, who has been in and out of the band for many years, pitching in as well.
Look Out Highway is an album with buckets of soul. As a singer Musselwhite isn’t the greatest, but there’s a certain chill blue collar quality to his voice that works so very well with these 11 songs. The San Francisco Chronicle got it right when they praised Charlie as having “taste, restraint and power. He’s one of the best, and as a bluesman, he’s as real as they come.” He’s also said to be the inspiration behind Dan Aykroyd’s Elwood Blues character in the Blues Brothers, and if you know both the similarities are apparent. Thematically the lyrical subject matter is familiar but then that’s part of what makes the blues soulfully comforting.
I never met a Charlie Musselwhite record I didn’t like, and Look Out Highway makes it into my top 5. Inspiring stuff.
HOT TRACKS: Blue Lounge, Ready for Times To Get Better, Storm Warning
TRUTH IS Carolyn Wonderland (Alligator Records) *****
Wonderland shakes the dust from the rafters with her latest album for Alligator. Truth Is, jaunty title track aside, is a lively brand of blues that will leave you gasping for breath and begging for more. No Depression sums up Carolyn Wonderland’s sound as “her own inimitable take on twangy blues dripping with honky-tonk grease. Her vocals are a bluesy cowgirl’s dream come true.” Sounds kind of great doesn’t it? That’s because it is.
This Texas guitar slinger puts some twang in her playing and singing, but this ain’t exactly country. A combination of Tex-Mex and riff-driven rock & roll with more than a little bit of soul, the songs on Truth Is are powered by righteous conviction as her lyrics deal with common sense truths that she says “need to be told”. This was produced by legendary guitarist Dave Alvin, who also produced her previous record, co-wrote and plays on some of the songs here too. Carolyn is quite a guitarist with a feisty style and the voice to match. She turned pro at the age of 15 and has been on the road her entire career, playing with icons like Townes Van Zandt, Levon Helm, Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, Bob Dylan and John Mayall.
I like the bluesy twang of Truth Is but there is really quite a variety of textures here aside from that. Wishful Thinking feels like classic country, and Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard Again has a very likeable bluesy swagger, and the blistering riff-powered album opener Sooner Or Later has the steam to make even a crusty old fart like yours truly get up and bust a move. I had a feeling I was going to like Truth Is, what I didn’t count on was falling in love.
HOT TRACKS: Sooner Or Later, Orange Juice Blues, Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard Again
