ME Katie Knipp (independent) *****
Katie Knipp’s 4th top ten billboard charting blues album is a work of startling originality and dark beauty. Me, as noted on her website, “brings Knipp’s hard-fought personal and musical self-awareness to the forefront of the contemporary blues landscape”, and that ain’t no lie.
Me is rooted in classic 70’s rock within the blues and her unique, compelling voice is mesmerizing. One of my favorite blues guitarists Walter Trout calls this album “incredibly moving and beautiful, original, unique, inspired and visionary” and he’s right. Her songwriting and vocal performance are adventurous, like the blues meets classic rock with just a hint of Berlin cabaret… too far out there for some, but I am totally smitten with its raw, gritty charm.
One of the things that makes Knipp’s new record so outstanding is that it sort of wanders where it pleases. You might to go back to Nina Simone to find such deep and startlingly emotional lyrics- ranging from sultry to social justice concerns- as Katie lays her emotions bare for all to see. Like Beth Hart her raw and passionate voice is an acquired taste for some, but those that get what she’s doing love her for it. She calls Sacramento home these days but there’s no mistaking New Orleans in this slide-drench blues/ rock. No idea who is in her band but she’s surrounded by the right people who can feel intuitively what she’s going for here. Me is a powerful statement that will leaves its mark on those brave enough to drop the needle and come on in.
HOT TRACKS: Lava Pot, Vampire, The Devil’s Armchair
CIRCLE OF LIFE Victory (AFM Records) *****
I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again; nobody does hard rock like the Germans. Victory is a Hanover-based group, and as I spin Circle Of Life it seems a mystery that these guys aren’t a bigger deal. The huge riffs are catchy as hell and founding member Herman Frank once played with Accept. This disc is muscular, driving and catchy as anything, easily the equal of anything Accept has done since their 2010 resurrection.
Herman Frank wrote these 10 songs, so there is a genetic link to his old band in the wall of guitars and the martial quality, at times, of the riffage. Circle Of Life is positively bristling with hard rock authority and, between me and you Victory’s Gianni Pontillo is a better, more versatile singer any of the guys that fronted Herman’s old band- and that’s no knock against them. HF has also proven himself to be a masterful songwriter too and he’s justifiably proud of what he and his bandmates have created here, calling the album “more grown up and mature than its predecessor. We’ve taken the songs to a whole new level in every respect.”
I love the energy, the vibe and the individual performances of each band member on Circle Of Life. Not sure how well known the band is outside of Germany, but this disc has the spirit and the tunes to make them much bigger throughout the rest of the world. There is literally nothing about this disc that I don’t like; it’s a total home run.
HOT TRACKS: Tonight We Rock, Count On Me, Money
I’M TOO OLD FOR GAMES: A LIVE TRIBUTE TO ODETTA Misty Blues (Guitar one Records) ****
I’m Too Old For Games is Misty Blues’ 16th album, their 3rd live album and their 2nd acoustic album. It’s a passion project that’s been brewing for singer Gina Coleman since the 90’s, whose encounter with Odetta at The Bottom Line Club as a guest of Arlo Guthrie left a powerful impression and is considered a seminal moment in her career. Odetta, who died in 2008, was often referred to as “the voice of the civil rights movement”… if she were alive today I believe she’d approve of this record. It’s the band’s second tribute to the late singer, following last year’s hugely successful Tell Me Who You Are, and will ensure her music lives on.
As an important figure of the folk revival of the 60’s and so the civil rights movement, Odetta’s music played a key role and Misty Blues felt it was important to ensure that her body of work not slide into obscurity; hence the two live tribute sets. Coleman’s throaty, expressive voice leads the charge as this ridiculously talented band grooves relentlessly to give her the music needed to complete the circle. I don’t remember Odetta’s music from the 60’s- I was just a kid- but the message of her music and of the civil rights movement itself reverberates to this day and, in an increasingly fractured society, is at least as important now as it was then.
Put I’m Too Old For Games on, listen to the music, then dig deeper into the songs to grasp the messages they contain. Odetta had something to say and dammit, we’d better listen.
HOT TRACKS: Jim Crow Blues, Homeless Blues, Freedom Trilogy
CONCRETE BLUES Randy Lee Riviere (Wilderness Records) ****
Randy Lee Riviere is a blues artist in the same way that ZZ Top, an admitted influence, is. Randy is also a wildlife biologist, and that’s at the heart of Concrete Blues. Produced by Tom Hambridge this disc is a rockin’ set of thought provoking songs about the world around us.
Riviere mostly considers himself a country boy but took to rock & roll at an early age, citing ZZ Top’s Tres Hombres as being particularly influential. He splits his time between Nashville and a Montana farm and has been involved in large-scale efforts in the past to protect and restore important elements of the Native American landscape. Perhaps the intent of Concrete Blues can be best explained in the title song. “Let’s look at California” he says. “There are over 1300 dams in the state. In some cases ALL the water in these watersheds has been taken for metropolitan areas such as Los Angeles and huge scale monocultural agriculture, (yet) rivers and streams provide some of the most diverse and important wildlife habitats on this planet.”
Musically Concrete Blues comes across like a rough and tumble bar fight. Produced by Grammy winning drummer/ producer Tom Hambridge, Randy is backed by players who have worked with Bob Dylan, Delbert McClinton, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Buddy Guy and more. As a producer Hambridge really gets where Riviere is coming from and supports his vision with a robust and exciting sound- no wonder he’s so damn busy behind the console! This is the good stuff and Randy calls it a “head-bobbing driving force of energy”; couldn’t have said it better myself.
HOT TRACKS: Concrete Blues, Just Trying To Get Back Home, Drive
ROCKA ROLLA 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION Judas Priest (Exciter Records) ****
Judas Priest’s 1974 debut, Rocka Rolla, has been remixed and remastered by producer Tom Allom for its 50th anniversary. Gull Records, Priest’s label for their first 2 albums, sold the rights to RR (and Sad Wings Of Destiny) to Reach Music, paving the way for these records to get some much needed technical attention. Was the attention and fuss worth it? Only one way to find out; play them back to back… first the original mix, then the 2024 50th anniversary remix/ remaster and compare, so that’s what I did.
I discovered Judas Priest in 1979, after reading about them in Circus magazine as an opening act for Kiss. My first JP was Hell Bent For Leather and I backtracked into the rest of their discography from there. I loved the hard, angry metal sound of HBFL and so was taken by surprise with Rocka Rolla. Produced by Roger Bain who was behind Black Sabbath’s first 3 albums, it seemed weak and rather proggy, almost Doors-like compared to the rest of band’s seventies output. I may have given it a couple of cursory listens at the time then filed it away.
It isn’t surprising to find out the band were disappointed with Bain’s original mix too, according to an article on www.blabbermouth.net. “I put the needle in the groove… and I slowly started to deflate” Rob Halford says. “I was so disappointed with the way it was sounding, we all were.” After acquiring the rights to Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings in 2022, the task was given to longtime producer Tom Allom to bring them up to date with a sonic facelift. Allom says “what we did with the multi-tracks was quite unusual, to completely remix an album from that era from scratch. We (didn’t) re-record any musical parts… we’ve remixed them, using the technology we have, to sonically upgrade them and make them sound more powerful.”
So… did it work? Yes. The differences between the original Rocka Rolla and this 50th anniversary edition may not be as startling as what Tony Iommi did recently with Black Sabbath’s Forbidden, but the difference is noticeable. Allom’s mix is much meatier than Roger Bain’s with the guitars much better defined and John Hinch’s drums given some much needed heft. Rob Halford’s vocals aren’t as buried in the mix, and Ian Hill’s bass is the backbone of the group’s sound, even back in the beginning. Rocka Rolla 50 will never sound as big and mean as the band’s 80’s classics but the sonic improvement is remarkable; sonically I’d put this on the same level as Stained Class.
“A lifelong journey began with these songs” Halford observes. “This album lit the eternal metal flame- as real and fresh as ever five decades on.” My congratulations to the business people behind the scenes that made this possible, and to producer Tom Allom for finally giving us Rocka Rolla the way it should be heard. It’s doubtful that I’ll listen to the original mix again. Rocka Rolla 50 is available now in Canada and the US digitally, and will be released worldwide on CD and vinyl in November.
HOT TRACKS: One For The Road, Rocka Rolla, Run Of The Mill
