The recovery album
James Armstrong is among these post-war born bluesmen who carry on the blues spirit of their elders with real inspiration and mastery. Often too hastily compared to Robert Cray, Armstrong, now 64, recorded the present album at 43. This third opus could have never seen the light though.
In the spring of 1997, some time after the issue of his first album, the excellent "Sleeping With A Stranger" (1), while he was going to start a tour in support of his album, Armstrong and one of his young sons were very badly injured by a mentally ill man who broke in their home. Stabbed in his left shoulder, Armstrong suffered a "permanent nerve damage" (2) that kept him away from his guitar for several months. Fortunately, with strong will, help and reeducation, he managed to overcome his incapacity and play again. For our greatest pleasure !
While his second album recorded after the tragic events was still ominously titled "Dark Night", it looks like he chose the present album's first and eponymous song "Got It Goin' On" (one of the few he didn't write), as an optimistic reference to winning his long recovering fight.
Author or co-author of 8 of the 11 songs, Armstrong writes and plays an authentic medium tempo blues with a smooth swing maybe inherited from his jazz guitarist father. His guitar technique, often in slide mode, is subtly efficient, without any attempt of over-flashiness, all in self-control and always to the point. Like his guitar, his voice texture perfectly fits his songs.
This album is greatly built and neatly produced : each of the 11 songs, carefully chosen, deserves being present, there's no padding with unwarranted material, each has its own musical identity, and Armstrong masters the art of starting most of his songs with an efficient little riff of his own.
"Pennies And Picks" is cleverly structured around a Beatles' "Come Together" basis, while "Another Dream" features a really beautiful soulful guitar solo, as well as "Love Will Make You Do Wrong". The funky side is not forgotten with "2 Sides" and "Mr. B's", neither the jazzy swinging tempo with "Beat Up By Love" and "I'll Learn Some Time". Even more classical blues like "Shut My Eyes", "Likes Her Lovin'" and "Lucky Guy" are tagged with their own personal Armstrong trademark.
He is the kind of bluesman who makes you say : I want more. Long live James Armstrong !
(1) If you missed it, you can find it here (register and ask for a proper link in the Comments section).
(2) The full story
On April 28, 1997 at 8 a.m., a friend of Armstrong's next-door neighbor, entered Armstrong's apartment without permission. "I was on the floor playing with my two sons ― they were 9 months and 2 ½", Armstrong recalls. "The guy just walked in and I said, 'What the hell are you doing? Get out of my house'."
Armstrong, afraid for his children's safety, immediately picked up the phone and began calling 911. As he was making the call, he turned around to find the assailant running at him with a knife in his hand. The attacker stabbed Armstrong in his left shoulder/neck area.
"At this point I just tried to protect myself and protect my sons", Armstrong says. "I just fought the best I could. I figured if I could lead him outside, he would leave my boys alone."
But his plan didn't work. The assailant went right for Armstrong's older son. He picked him up and threw him over the second-floor balcony.
By the time the ordeal was over, Armstrong had been stabbed three times and his son had suffered a skull fracture. (borrowed from The Mercury News).
Also on JA's web site, Bio page : http://jarmblues.com
James Armstrong dicography
- Sleeping with a Stranger, 1995 (HighTone Records)
- Dark Night, 1998 (HighTone Records)
- Got It Goin' On, 2000 (HighTone Records)
- Blues At The Border, 2011 (Catfood Records)
- Guitar Angels, 2014 (Catfood Records)
- Blues Been Good to Me, 2017 (Catfood Records)
James Armstrong live
> Live at the famed Don Odells Legends Studio, 2017 : here
> A 1-hour concert in Belgium, 2017 : here
> A 36-mn appearance at the University of Maryland, 2018 : here
> Live at Bluestage club, Michigan, 2019 : here
> In Spain at Rock and Blues Zaragoza, 2020 : here
This is Armstrong second album, recorded over a year after being severely stabbed in his left shoulder by a man who broke in his California house in April 1997 (1). It bears many traces of this frightening day and of the ensuing psychological trauma and long months of rehabilitation to slowly recover his ability to play guitar, his left arm having suffered serious nerve damages. With such a name, he couldn't but fight hard to get
his arm strong and fit again. Friends Joe Louis Walker and Doug MacLeod offered their support by guesting on two tracks each, and the final result is a neat collection of blues by a man who learned his trade by backing such blues giants as Albert Collins, Big Joe Turner and Smokey Wilson. 
