Skin Deep reviewed by Steve Jones

Skin Deep
Buddy Guy
Silvertone Records
www.buddyguy.com
12 tracks

Buddy Guy has been an icon of the blues world for decades. His albums of late have varied a bit, but this one is a winner and is right up there with his “Sweet Tea” CD in intensity and great songs. Susan Tedschi makes an appearance and husband Derek Trucks is on two tracks as is Robert Randolph. Eric Clapton and Quinn Sullivan also make appearances on a track each.

The title track is an interesting mix of slide and acoustic guitar with Buddy and Derek Trucks. “Lyin’ Like a Dog” is a 7+ minute track of Guy doing what he does best- playing dirty, slow blues. I can’t pick a favorite or even a few favorites from this CD. None of the tunes have any big weaknesses and every track seems to have something special in it.
The guitar work is impeccable, the guests add flair to the already flamboyant Guy, making this a great effort overall. He has added another super CD to his legacy of great music. This CD showcases what this septuagenarian can still do at the top of his game. If you like what Buddy Guy can do or mean guitar blues, you’ll love this CD.

Live in Chicago reviewed by Steve Jones

Live In Chicago
Windy City Rev Ups
Independent release
www.WindyCityRevUps. com
10 tracks/41 minutes


Rick Reminger and his band may have changed their name, but the sounds these guys make is still pretty sweet. The Windy City Rev Ups serve up 10 tracks of live cuts recorded at a couple of Chicago area establishments (Antioch and Plainfield). The album serves as notice as to what the band can do with some rocking blues standards and their own stuff.

Rich provides the vocals, harp and rhythm guitar. Rick Fobes on keyboards and George Lempers on lead guitar are steady and able. Dave Steffen also fills in on lead guitar on the last two tracks. Mike Maloney on bass and Frank Laubinger on drums provide a good backdrop for the band.

The CD begins with eight covers. They do standards like SRV’s “Cold Shot,” Elmore Jame’s “The Sky is Crying,” a funked up Memphis Slim’s “Every Day I Have the Blues” and Ronnie Earl’s “Follow Your Heart,” my favorite of the covers. The last two cuts are Rick’s original tunes and serve as a precursor to what’s ahead for the band. They have a new CD coming out in the fall that is all original stuff. This CD whets the listeners appetite for their original music and sets the table for the new release, a good strategy by Reminger and Company. I like the two original cuts alot, “Swing Out Chicago” and “I Should Have Known.” The former is a swinging little number while the latter is more in line with their blues roots

The band is trying to move their image from strict blues to also include R&B, funk, swing, rock and dance. No matter what you label their “style,” they are a great little band who can rock it out and get down dirty with any other band!

nanoswarm reviewed by Steve Jones

nanoswarm
Jassen Wilber
Independent release
www.myspace/jassenwilber
10 tracks

When I got this CD to review I had some decent expectations. The CD begins with a decent enough jazzy cut featuring Jassen on lead bass and Sue Orfield on sax; the tune is called Dark Matter. The next song, Mellow B, gets all smooth jazzy and features a techno sound mixing the styles of John Tesch, the strong bass lead, a Ron Sutton drum solo and a muffled audio telling you about how killer the drum solo is. Well, it was a drum solo but I found nothing too great about it. By the time the third track hits your senses you realize you’ve now been transported to a bad night at Echo’s on late night Public Radio. Another almost schlocky cool jazz track follows. And then we get to track 5, a song simply called God Great Grace. This track mixes the lead bass line with some interesting gospel-like but fake-organ keyboard by Mike Vlahakis. Interesting, but now I am thankful I did not buy this CD on my own. I did not find, see or feel much different in my relationship to God by listening to this song.

Phage is the next track. I don’t know what a Phage is, but after listening to this I really didn’t care to find out, so you can Google it on your own. The song repeats a variation on a lead bass line; by this point one can appreciate Jassen’s virtuosity on bass but it just doesn’t cut it (at least for me). And then 3 and a half minutes into it, the guitar lead makes it’s way through the same repetitive type riffs for a mere 30 seconds before a 2 minute finale rising to a crescendo of repetitive bass licks.

The Point of Pointless is a mix of funk and jazz, the lead bass leading the way for nearly six minutes. The title track is very 50’s outer space sounding, with the spooky alien sounds of keys mixed with the incessant bass line for a new take on a cheap Halloween sound effects CD. My favorite sci-fi movie of all time lends its’ name to the next to last track (Forbidden Planet). It is punky, driving tune with sound effects and distortion. The line, “Woke up early this morning” blares out about 45 seconds into the cut, and then the heavy, driving beat takes over again. 2 minutes later, “Down the road I go, have no place to go,” is prophetically stated. And then a different deep bass voice finishes the cut with the statement that sounds like, “That them blues singing up one side of the wall.” Hmm, what was that all about? It certainly wasn’t blues. The album concludes with another funky track featuring the big lead bass, guitar and a heavy metal sound overlaid on Spyro Gyra and King Crimson mixed together. It’s called “Kill the Rabbit”, but by now I’ve heard enough just to want this to end, and 3:29 later it finally does.

The musicianship here is excellent. The bass, sax, guitar, keys and even the drums are all technically played quite soundly. What I am lost with is the songs themselves. I expected at least a resemblance to the blues somewhere and never found any. Cool jazz with heavy metal is not something I tolerate well, nor is the poor man’s mix of hard rock and funk. If you want to hear some cool bass sounds and a lot of weird stuff, this is your CD. But there is nothing that resembles blues on any level. I’m sorry, but I just did not get this at all.

Blues is My Life reviewed by Harmonica Joe

Blues Is My Life
Chris Harper and thr Sharade Band
Independent release
www.chrisharper.ch
11 tracks

"Blues Is My Life" is a very interesting blues project. Having never hearing of Chris Harper or the Sharade Band, I had no idea of what to expect. With a name like Chris Harper and being a harmonica player I assumed that he was a good one. Harper is a harp player from Switzerland and the Sharade Band is from Italy. In the mix for this project, are the Chicago Horns, Billy Branch and Chico Banks. As you can see from this line up we are in for an international treat!

Chris harper was inspired by the likes of Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson and Muddy Waters at about the age of 12. Good choices they were on his part. Having started to play harmonica at this age has paid off. It is very apparent on the CD that he paid his dues. I would say that his relationship with and learning from the great Sugar Blue is one of Chris' biggest assets. Chris Harper had to have been paying attention!

"Sweet Honey Sunshine," written by Harper, sets the stage for the rest of the CD. It is very evident that the relationship with Sugar Blue was the right choice to make. His harp playing leaves us with a feeling that Sugar Blue is present at the event. The background singers on this tune are a great addition. Gianluca Baroncelli also does one heck of a sax solo for us here.

I have to admit that at first I did not care for Chris Harper's vocals. After listening to most of the tracks five or ten times, I realized that he just has a different quality to his vocals. In the end it was all good after all.

On "Help Me", Billy Branch joins the mix. This is probably my favorite track on the album. The whole band just sounds great. The Chicago Horns are a big plus and bringing in a great keyboard solo by Sharade Band's Giacomo Lauria, makes this tune a step up from the norm.

"Blues Is My Life," written by Chris Harper is maybe the stand out song of the whole CD. It contains everything that this band is about. This is a pretty funky tune. We have great lyrics, the outstanding background singers, Chico Banks on guitar, a sax solo and of course a dynamite harp solo.

"Soul Bossa Nova," is a catchy tune with a Latin beat . This instrumental showcases the Chicago horns, the sax player, Chris' harp playing and the Sharade Bands abilities. This a good closing tune.

This album was produced by Chris Harper and recorded at Delmark Records' Riverside studio. The CD is available at www.cdbaby.com. Chris wrote six of the songs on this CD and did a fine job. As you play each track on the record it makes you want to here the rest of it. Sugar Blue's influence on Chris is ever present, but for sure Chris Harper is not a Sugar Blue clone. He is his own musician and one heck of a harp player.

Bluelisted reviewed by David Stine

Bluelisted
JW Jones
Northern Blues www.northernblues.com
14 tracks

JW Jones, for those of you who haven’t heard of him, is a Canadian singer, guitarist, songwriter. “Bluelisted” is his fifth CD. He is aided on this effort by guitarists Junior Watson and Little Charlie Baty, as well as Richard Innes, and Larry Taylor. I had heard “Out of Service Blues” on Bluesville (XM radio) and I was thrilled to receive the disc to review. Even with pretentiously oblique liner notes by Dan Akroyd (still parading as Elwood Blues, c’mon), I discovered that one song does not a great disc make, nor does enlisting the services of a group of well-know Westcoasters.

Don’t get me wrong, the playing on this disc is first rate. That is not the problem. Jones holds his own very well against chopmeisters Watson and Baty. Jones songs, although somewhat pedestrian, are not god-awful like some I’ve heard. It’s just that after several listens to the disc it started to sound samey samey--too many songs in a moderate tempo and Jones using the same vocal techniques and range. On several plays through the whole CD, I swore I’d heard the same song twice on one spin.

The CD is less than 50 min. long but seems longer. Of the 13 songs, two are instrumentals, which takes some of the burden off of Jones acquired-taste voice. He is not a bad singer; his range is a little high, which makes the delivery of some of his lyrics a seem a bit out-of-character. His insistence on vocalizing the held notes gets old about mid way thought the disc. I believe that fans of The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Little Charlie and the Nightcats might enjoy this disc.

My favorite song is the swinging “Heavy Dosage,” one of the instrumentals. CD jacket notes list order of guitar players taking solos which is a nice touch. The aforementioned “Out of Service Blues,“ allows Baty to show off his harmonica (his first instrument) chops; and this is my second favorite song on the CD. On “Somebody’s Got to Burn,” it almost seems that Jones is singing in a different key than the band, but it could be that there is no really defined vocal melody line. Jones vocals seem to weave in and out at will.

The song arrangements rely upon lots of standard progressions with some little glimmers of bygone guitarists popping up here and there. Jones has studied his Chicago and West coast heroes. None of the songs jumped out at me as soon-to-be classics, but kudos to Jones or not relying on yet another version of a classic blues song. Jones appears to be a young man; with more vocal chops and in a bigger range of tempos, he may still be a contender in a pretty saturated market. There wasn’t enough variety here for me, but you may want to check him out on line and see what you think

Postmarked Illinois reviewed by David Stine

Postmarked Illinois
Rene Trossman Band
Faust Records
www.renetrossman.com
12 tracks

I don’t like giving CDs bad reviews. Honest. When I got the Rene Trossman Band CD, I had high hopes: Trossman, before moving to the Czech Republic, had backed Chicago blues stalwarts Albert King, Otis Rush, Magic Sam and Earl Hooker. With a title like Postmarked Illinois, I thought yeah, Chicago blues!

The CD does start off strong with a great version of Albert Collins’ great instrumental, “Frosty.” Unfortunately, the next song introduces Trossmans vocals. I am still grappling with where the vocal bar should be set with blues singers. The genre began as a vocal medium but has become showoff land for guitar players and harpists giving rise to poorly written “blooze” tunes and so-so vocal chops. Should white guys be given a break? Should “aged in” voices be treated more kindly no matter what color the singer? It’s a tough call.

I will say this, there are issues with Postmarked Illinois that begin with Trossman’s voice. First, he has a very limited range, coupled with intonation problems, and a choked off delivery. All in all, it gives the listener the painful feeling of listening to a heavy smoker in his final gasping days as a singer. Trossman’s guitar playing, however is nicely sedate and tasty. His licks are limited but are nicely augmented by superb keyboarding from Jan Korinek who also produced the CD. The mix of the drums on this disc is a bit overpowering; they are mixed in at the same level as Trossman’s vocals, which sometimes is a distraction. Either because of a poor mic or poor miking, the cymbal crashes sometimes sound like an aluminum pie plate or a chicken being thrown into a big pot of boiling water.

There is no discounting Trossman’s love for Chicago blues, but when he tackles songs like Magic Sam’s “Easy Baby,” it’s clear that Sam (even with his vocal detractors) was a far superior singer. At times Trossman’s vocals are painfully out of his range and the notes just seem to disappear. Examples are the painful-to-listen to “Big Leg Woman,” and “Down and Out.” Trossman covers tunes by Albert Collins, Magic Sam, Earl Hooker, James Wheeler and others. His own compositions are plagued by forced rhyme schemes over cloned arrangements adding nothing new for blues lovers. Again, I REALLY wanted to like this disc, but, to me, it was a painful listen.

Just Between Us reviewed by Mark Thompson

Just Between Us
Clarence Spady
Severn Records, Inc.
www.severnrecords.com
11 tracks/49:05

Clarence Spady is a singer, songwriter and guitarist who had a release twelve years ago on the Evidence label. Nature of the Beast received substantial critical acclaim and Spady seemed destined for bigger and better things. One key element in that recording was the use of the Hammond organ, which was just starting to regain its popularity in blues and jazz. Another highlight was Spady’s gritty original blues tunes.

His new effort also features his own material, including two songs that were co-written with Donya Washington. Once again, the Hammond organ plays a prominent role on each track, courtesy of Bob O’Connell or Benjie Porecki. But the music on the latest disc reveals far different influences than the last release.

Spady is now mixing funky soul grooves with a bit of blues for an engaging collection that slowly insinuates it’s way into your consciousness. “Enough of You” has a rhythm that glides along before Spady heats things up with a strong guitar solo. His vocal on “Just Between Us” at times sound like Prince in his younger days, His voice displays a supple range with a slightly higher pitch that consistently breathes life into each cut. He really digs into the harder funk beat of “Won’t Be This Way Always”, with Porecki adding fat chords on the Hammond organ and tasteful fills on electric piano. Clarence veers toward a soul-jazz feel on the guitar passage.

The gospel-tinged “I’ll Go” features strong backing vocals from Meg Murray and Karla Chisholm. The spirit in this song embodies Spady’s view of life – a message of love, peace and forgiveness. “Cut Them Loose” preaches the importance of associating with the right people. Clarence switches to the blues on “Be Your Enough”. This slow-burner features fat chords on the organ from Porecki plus a gritty vocal turn and a taut guitar solo from Spady.

The lone weak track is the instrumental “E-Mail”. It is pleasant enough but it never really develops, despite being the longest cut on the disc. The closing tune, “Candy”, goes back to the up-tempo funk groove with several fine tenor sax breaks from Jacques “Saxman” Johnson.

This project is a real deviation from Spady’s prior work. He conveys a strong feel for his mixture of soul and funk topped off with blues. The eleven tracks shows a verve for life and Spady’s passion for the best it has to offer. Give it a chance – this one will grow on you !!