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The Bohemian bluesman
Richard Ray Farrell (RRF) has led quite a bohemian life. He left his native New York State in 1976 to seek fortune in Europe. After busking in the Paris subway (a real breeding-ground for future talents, at least at that time) for a few years, spending time in Spain around 1978, settling down for a few years in Stuttgart (Germany) in the mid-1980s, playing in different bands, he finally found himself backing an array of Afro-American blues musicians on their European tours in the beginning of the 1990s : Louisiana Red, Big Jack Johnson, Lazy Lester, Big Boy Henry, and more particularly Frank Frost and R.L. Burnside, who were like first-hand mentors to him. This led him to record a first album in 1992 which definitely launched his career.
Released in 2013, At Cambayá Club: Caleta Rock was recorded two years earlier during a concert in Antequera, a town in Andalusia about 40 km north of Malaga, where the Cambayá Records label's headquarters are based together with a blues club.
RRF fell in love with the country of corrida and flamenco, where people drink "clarete" wine rather than moonshine whiskey, and brought his roots blues from the Delta with him. Except on two songs, "Frankie & Johnny" and "Blue Shadows Fallin'" where he's joined by Spanish bass player Alberto Soler, RRF is alone on guitar and harmonica for fifteen covers and three originals of his own ("Blind Blake Rag", " Bohemian Life" and "Caleta Rock").
An amazing guitar finger-stylist and a powerful singer with a very identifiable voice, he offered his Spanish audience a fine collection of acoustic country blues from some of the best musicians in the genre, and some outstanding numbers : Bo Carter's humorous "Let's Get Drunk Again", the technically very impressive instrumental "Blind Blake Rag", Robert Johnson's "Phonograph Blues", "Lonely Widower", a song written by one Robert Curtis Smith, the rejoicing Blind Lemon Jefferson's "One Dime Blues", an appealing jazzy version of "Frankie & Johnny", the Memphis Slim's boogie "Sassy Mae" greatly adapted on guitar, Blind Boy Fuller's "Funny Feeling Blues", the rocking cover of Big Bill Broonzy's "Diggin' My Potatoes" with nice parts on harmonica..With such a live acoustic album RRF shows that he knows his classic elders and that he is able to revisit them with a rare technical level and real feeling. Faithful to the biblical saying that none is a prophet in his own country, he decided a few years later to settle down in Andalusia on the Costa del Sol.
Shoe Shoppin' Woman, his eleventh album, was recorded in Newtown (Pennsylvania) in 2014, just before he moved to Spain. A refreshing work with a strange feeling to it : as the first notes of the opening track ring, you think you are bound for some acoustic blues when in fact it's an all electric album you hear. Abundantly using slide and open tuning, RRF's style has a throw-back side but at the same time it sounds resolutely contemporary. This is most likely due to his playing old vintage guitars.The band is voluntarily staying in the back row leaving the front to RRF's guitar, harmonica and vocals. RRF is a fairly good blues singer and harmonicist, and a gifted rather humorous songwriter, signing eight originals and covering only three blues classics from L.C. Glenn ("Blue Shadows Falling"), Snooks Eaglin/Dave Bartholomew ("If I Could") and Elmore James ("Wild About You").
The album opens with the eponymous "Shoe Shoppin' Woman" and its very original vibrato slide guitar sound, before going through solid Hill Country-like rocking numbers ("Stuck In Philly", "Just Like Sonny Liston") and hot Texas blues like "Blue Shadows Falling" that has a definite SRV sound, and "Road Trippin'" this time with a very Johnny Winter touch, as if on both tracks RRF was saying with a wink : "You see, I can do it like that too !"Elmore James' "Wild About You" "Johnnie's In Jail", "Shake It!" feature amazing slide guitar work. "Stir Crazy" is a New Orleans style rock'n'roll with exciting piano by Glenn McClelland. The final "She's My Girl", another rock number, closes this rejoicing highly rhythmical treat of an album.
RRF has a vocal signature of his own, and his guitar and harmonica playing show a deep knowledge and mastery of Southern blues. A really fine work.
Three Pints Of Gin is very different in the sense that, like for his 2013 record "Caleta Rock", it's an all acoustic one-man album recorded in live conditions : just RRF singing with his guitar and harmonica. As rightly pointed out by Blue Dragon's Blue DeVille, it was recorded straight with no overdubs in Malaga (not the US). Anyway it takes you down miles away in the Mississippi Delta and the East Coast Piedmont region famous for its complex finger-picking style.Sixteen roots tracks : some political protest-blues ("Ice Man", the adapted traditional "He's In The Jailhouse Now"), some folk ballads ("Gotta Have Love", "Listenin' To The Fallin' Rain") but most of all straight vintage sounding blues, most of them RRF's originals except "Lazy Woman Blues" (Lonnie Johnson), "Funny Feeling Blues" (Fulton Allen) and a rather jazzy cover of "Evenin'" (Bukka White).
Some feature humorous, sometimes ferocious, lyrics ("Triflin' Preacher Blues", "Dope Shootin' Woman"), or autobiographical elements ('"Ice Man" again, "Bohemian Life"). In a word, funny or grave, it's blues in all its diversity, sung and played by a guy who's been living it every day for years.I can't conclude this review without pointing out the quality of the lossless rip worked out by Blue DeVille which makes RRF sound almost as natural as if he was playing right in your living room. Thanks to him for this great job. ■
Interview
● Reading : https://www.bluesmagazine.nl/interview-richard-ray-farrell
Live videos
● Lemon Rock, Granada (Spain), 2022 :
[Richard Ray Farrell : vocals, guitar & harmonica - Fernando Beiztegui : guitar - Dani Levy : bass - Cote Calment : drums - Alex Serrano : piano]
● The Blue Stompers Jump Review with special guests Mike Vernon, Frédéric Grenier and Richard Ray Farrell, Benalmadena, 2019 : https://youtu.be/z7dMb9r4CyY ● The Temperance House, Newtown (Pennsylvania), 2017 :
,%20Steve%20Guyger%20(Harp,%20Vox).jpg) |
Guyger, RRF & MacPherson
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→with Richard MacPherson (guitar) and Steve Guyger (harmonica, vocals) :
● Léognan (France), 2016 :
[Richard Ray Farrell : guitar, harp and vocals - Abdell B.Bop : upright bass - Francis Gonzalez : drums]
[Jesús Duran, keyboards - Kike Porras, drums - Ángel Ariza, bass & vocals]
[Richard Ray Farrell : guitar & vocal - Quique Gómez : harmonica - Sergio Barez del Cueto : bass - Pablo Barez del Cueto : drums - Edu "Manazas" : guitar]
● With Marco Pandolfi & Jacknives, Bologna (Italy), 2010 :
[Marco Pandolfi : harmonica - Marco Gisfredi : guitar - Enrico Soverini : drums - Max "Pitta" Pitardi : bass]
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