The Super Catch-Back, vol. 4 & 5 : Boney Fields - Maria Muldaur - Toronzo Cannon - Tab Benoit, Debbie Davies, Kenny Neal - Big Bad Voodoo Daddy - Cyril Neville - Wes Montgomery - Buckwheat Zydeco - Kenny Burrell & Jimmy Raney

...they deserved to be featured here…

 

Boney Fields & The Bone's Project - Red Wolf (2003)

Howlin' Fields

The wolf is howling and growling out there in the background, red like a chili pepper and hot as the infernos. On the cover, with his dark bowler hat, wicked eye and sharp teeth ready to tear your flesh, he's fronting a jungle jumble of fearsome musical animals, and from the CD disc he's throwing a threatening look at you.

This is not Howlin' Wolf but Boney Fields, and “Red Wolf” is a highly enjoyable album by the champions of funk jubilation, Boney Fields and his Bone's Project band, one of the baddest horn section on the circuit today (Fields on trumpet, Nadège Dumas on tenor sax, Max Pinto on baritone sax and Pierre Chabrèle on trombone).

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)

► Get the album at the usual place...

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.