Waiting For The World to End reviewed by Steve Jones

Waiting For The World to End

Dave Widow and the Line Up

Self released

www,davewidow.com

14 tracks

Dave Widow: guitar player, vocalist and song writer.  I’d never heard of him; that’s not abnormal in my position.  I get a lot of CDs done by folks I’ve not heard of.  Sometimes I am surprised, both good and bad.  Well, here in this CD I was mostly surprised in a good way.

Dave Widow admittedly is not a household name.  Hailing from Cincinnati and now from L.A., Widow blends blues, soul, funk, and rock.  He’s got a good lineup of L.A. Area musicians backing him up, for the most part being Reggie McBride on bass, Gary Mallaber on drums, Mike Finnigan on organ and piano (along with David Morgan on piano, too), and a host of backing vocalists and other musicians picking up a track here and there.

He starts this set with a down tempo track called “Bluesman” and follows it with three more slow to mid tempo cuts.  Good songs, but he doesn't let it all hang out until track five, “Baby Wants to Rock.”  As you continue to listen you see that’s not his scene.  The styles change, but rocking out is not the norm here.  Two other tracks really can be said to be truly up tempo.  But while that is perhaps a small complaint, the mid and down tempo stuff has feeling, depth, really decent lyrics and varies in style from track to track.  The closer “Sweet Janine” is a pretty little love ballad.  The title track is funky, sarcastic and cool  He says, “I’m not afraid of Jesus, I’m afraid of germs” and goes on about how dumb society can be.  Sadly, one has to agree with his assessments if you watch the news.

“Leave a Piece of Me” opens like a Motown cut, with a catchy intro. “Piss You Off” is a deep blues, with a nice guitar solo; this demonstrates Dave’s feeling for the genre.  He growls out about the woman who doesn't treat him right in an updated blues on a subject we all know well. “Nothin’ On You” is another nice funky cut, with a big chorus of backing vocalists on the chorus and some wicked keys.  He even goes acoustic on “Picture of You,” somewhat folky and country.  It leads into “Second Hand Love,” a big, bold statement of another not-so-hot relationship.  It’s my favorite track, too.

The songs are cool, the musicianship is professional and together, and Widow makes some statements.  An interesting CD; I bet we hear more from this Southern California bluesman!

Reviewed by Steve Jones