The Mighty Soul Drivers - I'll Carry You Home (2022)

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Mighty groovy

The album starts, the music begins to flow, “I Can't Get Next To You" sings a soulful voice, the groove takes hold of you, you imagine you're in a club on Beale Street in Memphis or in Muscle Shoals. All wrong ! The Mighty Soul Drivers are from... Connecticut  ! And all wrong again, they really can get next to us with this very appealing album. Soul (especially Memphis sound), rhythm & blues, soul blues…, these guys aren't beginners and master their stuff like full-time professionals.

The band is tight around the beat. Bassist Tony Delisio and drummer Peter “River City Slim” Rost put out a powerful funky groove. Larry Willey, Bob Orsi and guests Paul Gabriel and Michael St. George deliver swinging rhythm guitar and great solos. Steve Donovan does a really fine job on keyboards with some churchy organ parts. John Smayda (saxes) and Neil Tint (trumpet) bring that Memphis/ Muscle Shoals sound along with a female background gospel-like choir. And the energetic Bob Orsi tops the whole pastry with his soulful vocals. What else do you need to get up and dance ?

James Brown - Live At The Apollo, 1962 (Expanded Edition, 2004) / Live At The Apollo Vol. II, 1967 (2-CD Deluxe Edition, 2001)

► Both albums are available at the usual place...

Doctor Soul and Mister Funk

This review is about both “Live At the Apollo” albums, the first one recorded in 1962 and originally released in 1963, the second, Vol. II, recorded in 1967 and originally released in 1968.

The rude boy saved by R'n'B
Born in an impoverished family of South Carolina, raised in Augusta, Georgia, by an aunt who ran a whorehouse, dismissed from school at the age of 12 for "insufficient clothing" (!), the young James Brown turned a bad boy in his teens. At age 16, he was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to three years in jail. Paroled in 1952, he started to sing in a vocal gospel quartet and met singer Bobby Byrd. In 1954, Brown joined Byrd's vocal gospel band, The Gospel Starlighters. In 1955, the group, influenced by Little Richard, evolved into a R'n'B band, was soon renamed the Famous Flames and started to play nightclubs in Macon, Georgia.

Bob Corritore & Friends - Do The Hip-Shake Baby! (2019)

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Do the harp-shake Bob!

Bob Corritore is not only a very talented and appealing harmonicist but he must be a very nice guy judging by the incredible number of friends who accept his invitations to guest on his albums. On this one, from 2019, the list is so long that I won't give it here, it would fill up all the space allowed to me on Blue Dragon ! The main ones are featured in the track-list, and the most interested will find the whole detailed casting here

Duke Robillard & Herb Ellis - Conversations In Swing Guitar (1999) & More Conversations In Swing Guitar (2003)

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Cool, elegant and gently swinging

Very jazzy, a little less bluesy, extremely cool, gently but surely swinging, the guitar adventures of Herb Ellis and Duke Robillard were recorded during the same session at the Lakewest Studio in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, in the early months of 1999 and released on two different albums : “Conversations…” in 1999, and “More Conversations…” in 2003. But both albums would deserve to be re-released as a double CD pack.

When jazz (Ellis) meets his old cousin blues (Robillard), and when the two heroes of the meeting are both superb guitarists, the result of the encounter is necessarily appealing.

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - Live (2004)

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Swing, swing, swing and... swing again ! 

Lovers of Cab Calloway's mischievous big band jump and swing should love BBVD just as well, especially on this rejoicing live album. The swing revival band, co-founded by singer-guitarist Scotty Morris and drummer Kurt Sodergren in Ventura, California, in 1989, was later joined by a solid cast of horn players, completed with a bassist, a pianist and a percussionist. During their residency at the Derby nightclub in Los Angeles, they reminded the world, in the midst of the grunge era, that it was still cool to swing. Since then Big Bad Voodoo Daddy (BBVD) has performed more than 2,600 shows over 22 years with a streak of 260 consecutive sold out concerts !

The Catch-back, vol. 3 : Herb Ellis - Pat Boyack - Buckwheat Zydeco - Doug MacLeod - Eddie Kirkland - Johnny Cash - Toby Walker - Lost Bayou Ramblers - Mercy - Robert Cage - Shawn Pittman & Jay Moeller

...some that deserved to be featured here…

Herb Ellis - Texas Swings (1992)

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When Herb Ellis celebrates his native Texas

At times, when the violin and the guitar are talking together, it almost sounds like the unforgettable pair Django Reinhardt-Stéphane Grappelli. The two French gypsy jazz musicians actually used to play some of the standards featured here : "Undecided", "It Had To Be You", "Sweet Georgia Brown". But no, here it's Dallas native Herb Ellis with a group of fine Western swing-Country music instrumentists : pianist Floyd Domino, pedal steel guitar master Herb Remington, fiddlers Johnny Gimble and Bobby Bruce, and… Willie Nelson on guitar, not forgetting the two Tommys' rhythm section, Aslup on bass and Perkins on drums.

This 10-song all-instrumental album features mainly Western swing and jazz standards, with only two Ellis compositions. If the final "America the Beautiful" is a disputable choice in my view, the nine preceding tracks are cheerfully swinging without being wild. The exciting sound of Remington's pedal steel is sometimes reminding that of Buddy Emmons on Danny Gatton's two "Redneck Jazz Explosion" 1978 live albums, and the fiddles bring a vintage Country & Western sound on some tracks.

Bobby Parker - Bent Out Of Shape (1993)

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The most famous unknown blues guitarist

The question is not to know if Lafayette native Robert Lee Parker was wearing a wig, it is to understand why he didn't grab his chance and never recorded any album before 1992 ! Soul singer, rhythm'n'blues musician… before all Parker is a great bluesman doubled with a great guitarist, so let's get on the “Fast Train” and see what's in the 11 cars.

First a word about the excellent backing band casting. On the keys one finds Sammy Berfect (accidentally Marva Wright's brother), a skilled musician who played for many musicians like Willy Deville, Harry Connick or Tori Amos ; Lee Allen Zeno (from Buckwheat Zydeco band at the time) on bass ; Raymond Weber (Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Solomon Burke) on drums ; and a solid and experienced horn section : renowned Austin musician, arranger & producer Mark 'Kaz' Kazanoff on sax, Rick Trolsen (Dr. John, Boz Scaggs...) on trombone, Willie Singleton (Four Tops, Rita Coolidge, Nancy Wilson, Lou Rawls...) and Hollywood film scores musician Jamil Sharif on trumpet. These four bring a strong r'n'b touch to the album. Too strong ? That's a good question...

Special Beau Jocque & The Zydeco Hi-Rollers Live - Give Him Cornbread, Live (1993, 2000) / Git It, Beau Jocque! (1995

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Fast and furious

The hottest and funkiest Zydeco you can hear ! Irresistible beat, shouts and yells (huu ! shoo ! bouge-bouge !), amazing (hard) rock-solid powerful rhythm section. These two highly rejoicing live recordings are just incredible ! The best medication against depression !

The volcanic Beau Jocque burst on the Zydeco circuit with his Hi-Rollers in 1991 and instantly became the public's favorite along with Boozoo Chavis, B.J.'s main influence and future rival. Andrus Espré aka Beau Jocque ("Big Guy” in Louisiana Creole) had listen to many successful Zydeco artists, studied every detail of their style and every reaction of the audience, and came up with a synthesis of the most efficient points he had identified, mixing varied genres, rock, blues, r&b, funk, reggae, with his strong crush for boogie. Himself not an very outstanding accordionist, he compensated with his unique energy, his gruff voice and his impressive physical stature (1,98 m, 120 kg), and with his gift as a band leader.

Christone 'Kingfish' Ingram - Kingfish (2019)

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Heavy weight talent
This debut work offers a range of styles reflecting Ingram's tastes and guitar skills. From barn-burners songs like “Outside Of This Town”, “It Ain't Right” and “If You Love Me”, that seem coming straight from Texas and immediately remind SRV or ZZ Top, to Delta blues with acoustic ballads like the innovative “Been Here Before” or the more classical “Hard Times”, through soul blues like the sorrowful “Listen” with Keb' Mo enlightened by fine arrangements around organ waves, “Before I'm Old” and “Believe These Blues”, both with a great guitar solos, “Trouble” and its Louisiana/New Orleans touch, or “That's Fine By Me” featuring nice piano by Marty Sammon. Among these are also two outstanding tracks : “Fresh Out” with Buddy Guy, and “Love Ain't My Favorite Word” mixing crossed influences from B.B. King and Hendrix in a memorable guitar hero solo.

Robert Belfour - What's Wrong With You (2000)

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The wolf from the hills

Robert “Wolfman” Belfour was 60 and had on his back 35 years of hard labor as a truck driver in the construction business when this album, his first, came out in 2000. He had learned to play guitar by himself, first observing his father, then when this one died while he was 13 and left him his guitar, by imitating artists he heard on radio  (Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker…)

Contrary to what's been often said, he repeated many times that he was never taught by his neighbor Junior Kimbrough. Is it really true ? Or was he tired to be systematically compared to his elder ? What is almost certain though is that he was rhythmically influenced by the fife & drum music of Otha Tuner and Syd Hemphill.