I just wrapped up my reviews for this month's edition of Blues Bytes, so I wanted to let you blues lovers know about a couple more new releases that are well worth your listening time, so let's get started.....
Way back in 1987, your humble correspondent made his first trip to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. My friend Scotty called me as I was getting off work and told me he had two tickets for the midnight show on the Riverboat President, a show featuring the Fabulous Thunderbirds (my favorite band at the time) with special guests Bonnie Raitt, Lazy Lester, Katie Webster, Dr. John, Duke Robillard, Rockin' Sidney, and the Roomful of Blues horn section.
Now, I had never even been to New Orleans in my 23+ years of existence, so I was anxious to see the show and take in the festival and the city. We got there in time to look around the city a bit and get on board the President. John Lee Hooker opened the show with a solo set that was awesome and then the Thunderbirds came on. The show was set up like an revue, with each guest getting to do a couple of songs and moving on to the next act.
Near the end, the Roomful horns took the stage and I was really impressed with them, particularly their charismatic tenor sax man, Greg Piccolo. They put on a great show. I saw the entire Roomful of Blues band at the Fairgrounds the next day, where they backed Earl King, having backed him on King's Black Top Records release, Glazed. Their performances led me to check out some of their recordings, where I was surprised that Piccolo not only played sax, but sang and served as the de facto leader of the band.
Piccolo wrote some songs on several of Roomful's releases, even cutting his own solo album for Black Top in 1990, Heavy Juice, before he departed for a solo career in the mid 90's, leading his own band, also called Heavy Juice. Now 75, he's released several albums since going solo and also plays with Heavy Juice and his Greg Piccolo Jazz Trio in addition to sitting in with other artists, but he recently released his sixth album, Who Knows What The Future Holds (MoMojo Records).
This release (produced by Terry Manning, who passed away soon after sending the first mix for review) focuses more on Piccolo's songwriting and his vocals. The songs cover a variety of styles from the jump blues that Roomful of Blues is renowned for, to old time rock n' roll, classic R&B, soul, and a bit of jazz. Don't worry, there's plenty of Piccolo's tenor sax as well, but he does a great job with vocals, showing a lot of range over the various styles.
Providing standout support for Piccolo are Shinichi Otsu (keys), Dean Shot (guitar), Paul Tomasello (bass), with horns from Al Gomez and Mark "Kaz" Kazanoff of the Texas Horns. This is an entertaining set that shows Piccolo to be a talented songwriter and singer as well as a first-call tenor sax man....a great album of classic blues and R&B.
Blues fans may not be familiar with Ryan "Bluwrath" Newman but, trust me, you soon will be. Newman was a young guitar prodigy, learning all of The Beatles tunes before he was seven years old, but he was introduced to Jimi Hendrix as an eight-year-old, and when he first heard "The Wind Cries Mary," his future as a blues guitarist was set. He was reportedly asked to leave the Berklee School of Music for playing too loud, but he has developed into a first-rate blues and rock guitarist influenced by Hendrix, SRV, B.B. and Albert King, John Mayer, and Jeff Beck, while crafting his own unique playing style.
Wrath of Blues (Feverbarn Records) is Newman's debut release and it's pretty awesome. He covers several well-known blues classics along the way on these 14 tracks, from the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan to B.B. and Albert King to Jeff Beck, Earl King, Aretha Franklin, Mose Allison, and Hoagy Carmichael(!). He even covers "Texas Flood" and "Dust My Broom".....and his versions of these tunes manages to acknowledge the original sources as well as presenting his own personal approach to each one. He's also a pretty good singer, though he does use several other vocalists on three or four songs.....keyboardist Vic Washington and singers Arlene Wow and Anita Antoinette. Newman also wrote one of the songs on the album, a nice slow blues that's really well done.
Newman currently fronts Righteous Continental, a power blues trio who appears on one of the tracks here. He also plays with The Incredible Amplifires, whose harmonica player guests on one track. The remainder of the band is considerable with additional guitars, horns, keys, bass and drums. However, the large cast doesn't take away from the talents of this powerful new guitarist, who should be raising eyebrows for an extended time to come. This is one that blues and blues-rock fans definitely need to investigate.
Another new band, The Shaelyn Band, was formed in 2020 in Florida and has enjoyed some success touring the eastern part of the U.S. and making it to the semi-finals in the 2024 I.B.C. in 2024. They are fronted by Shaelyn Mulberry, who is a dynamite vocalist. She and drummer Tim Mulberry also wrote all 14 of the songs on their third release, appropriately titled Chapter 3 (House of Berry Productions). The five piece band also includes guitarist Eric Guess, Moses Maldonado (trombone), Isaiah Gaytan (trumpet), Curtis Harris (bass), plus backing vocalist Win Carlson.
The songs are more or less modern updates on traditional blues topics and the band does an outstanding job throughout. Shaelyn's vocals are the real story here. She's quite talented and moves easily between blues, funk, rock and soul, with a couple of tracks that take on a countrified southern rock feel. I haven't heard the band's previous two releases, but listening to Chapter 3 may lead me to check those albums out.....this is a rock-solid set of blues and soul from a fine band and vocalist.
Our Blast From The Past this week is not an album. It's a book that I've been trying to track down for several years. I first encountered Robert Ealey on his two releases for Black Top Records (Turn Out the Lights and I Like Music When I Party). He was one of the most interesting vocalists I'd ever heard at the time. He was also mentioned in Alan B Govenar's enlightening and essential book Texas Blues: The Rise of a Contemporary Sound, along with several other Dallas/Fort Worth musicians.
Over time, I had heard about Robert Ealey and His Five Careless Lovers, a Fort Worth band that never made it to the studio, but were a tremendous influence that's felt even to this day. Their only recording was a 1971 live release, Live at the New Blue Bird Nite Club (produced by a young T-Bone Burnett and Stephen Bruton) that's available on LP or via streaming and it was a long sought-after collector's item until Record Town Records (which was owned by the Bruton family) reissued it in 2021.
Author Joe Nick Patoski, who's written biographies of Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willie Nelson, and Selena, as well as a history of the Dallas Cowboys. grew up in Fort Worth and was an eyewitness to the short-lived history of this band, which consisted of Ealey (vocals), the Reverend Good Rockin' Ralph Owens (keyboards), Freddie Cisneros (guitar), Sumter Bruton (guitar), Jackie Newhouse (bass) and Mike Buck (drums). In 2020, Patoski wrote The Ballad of Robert Ealey and His Five Careless Lovers, which is an oral history narrated by Cisneros (who went on to play with Jimmy Don Smith and the Cold Cuts and his own band The Sheetrockers), Bruton (who joined Ealey in the Juke Jumpers and also ran Record Town until the family sold it in 2018), Newhouse (who later played with Stevie Ray Vaughan, Anson Funderburgh, the Leroi Brothers and Alan Haynes), and Buck (who co-founded the Leroi Brothers, played drums for the Fabulous Thunderbirds and the Texas Mavericks and currently co-owns Antone's with his wife, guitarist Eve Monses).
The band stayed together in its original form until Buck exited in 1975 and it eventually dissolved a couple of years later, but the recollections shared by the surviving members (Ealey died in 2001 and Owens passed in 2006) are priceless, from how the band came together, their numerous gigs in the Fort Worth area, stories of their numerous supporters, and all the close calls and near-misses they endured over their short history. The book is relatively slim, but is loaded with rare pictures of the band in action and stories that you probably won't see anywhere else.
As Patoski put it in the introduction:
"This was genuine Texas blues, the hometown stuff those British bands had been stealing from and sending back to American youth for the past decade. Only unlike the Brits, this was the real deal, skipping along a gliding rhythm called the Fort Worth Shuffle. Ain't seen anything like it since."
If you're a fan of Texas blues, particular the DFW brand, you need to read this book. Here's Patoski and some of the surviving members talking about Robert Ealey back in 2020 promoting the upcoming release of the album that should give you a taste of what's in the book as well.
Here are a couple of upcoming releases that blues fans should have on their radar.....some cool releases to battle this serious summer heat.
One of the earliest blues artists that I was aware of was Taj Mahal. His records were always prominent in record stores and I can remember seeing him on television when I was in high school before I even got into the blues. Over the years, Mahal has incorporated reggae, jazz, and soul into his repertoire and he does all of them exceedingly well. He's never really stood still as far as his music goes......always trying out new sounds or improving on what he's already mastered.
During the late 90's and early 2000's, Taj Mahal & the Phantom Blues Band won back-to-back Grammys for two excellent albums (1998's Senor Blues and 2000's Shoutin' in Key). The PBB has toured frequently with Mahal since then, but are also a working band by themselves, having released several great albums of their own. Mahal recently released Time (Resonatin' Records/Thirty Tiger), which is taken from sessions recorded back in 2010 with the PBB, other than keyboardist Mike Finnigan who is replaced by Jon Cleary and Mick Weaver on piano and organ respectively.
If you're familiar with Taj Mahal's music, you know it will be a mix of blues, soul, reggae, jazz, and anything else that comes to mind during the recording process. There are some really good songs among these ten tracks....a few of my favorites are Mahal's reworking of Bob Marley's "Talkin' Blues," which features co-lead vocals from Ziggy Marley, Bob's son, Mahal's cover of "Ask Me 'Bout Nothing (But The Blues)," the Bobby "Blue" Bland classic, and the wonderful title track, written by Bill Withers, but never recorded.....Mahal and producer Steve Berkowitz (who worked with Withers and brought the song to the session) got permission from Withers' widow to include it on the album. I'm not sure why Withers never recorded the song, or for that matter why Taj Mahal never released Time until now, but I'm sure glad both things happened and blues fans will be, too.
Sherri Harding is a Canadian soul singer and she recorded her previous album, A Million Pieces, in Muscle Shoals. That effort was successful, so for her latest album, Storyland (Instant Replay Music), she brought some of Muscle Shoals to Ottawa in the form of guitarist Kevin Holley, who backed Little Richard and the Amazing Rhythm Aces, among others. She also used the Muscle Shoals horns, who recorded their tracks in Muscle Shoals.
All this being said, it wouldn't mean a thing if Ms. Harding didn't have the voice to put in front of the music, and she certainly has that. It's not the over-the-top variety vocal style that is sometimes prevalent in modern blues. She sings with a easy, confident assurance and listeners actually hear and understand the vocals. I really enjoyed her delivery on all of these songs, which were written by Richard Cooper, who also produced.
The songs are a mix of soul, blues, a bit of jazz, and R&B thrown in. She sound great on all of them, but she really has a way with the blues and soul-flavored tracks are standout, particularly "Down In The Shoals," which really captures the swamp, soulful essence of the Muscle Shoals sound. This is a great release with fine work from Harding and the entire band.
We'll look at a couple more new releases next week but meanwhile, another cool release that I recently found in the "Blast from the Past" department is a collection of the early recordings of Earl Hooker. We profiled Hooker many years ago on the blog, but all you need to know is that Hooker was one of the finest guitarist to ever play the blues. His slide guitar was just amazing and he was incredibly creative as a player with a clear and distinctive style, comfortable playing blues, jazz, country, and even rockabilly. He wasn't as confident with his singing as he was with his playing, so he often backed other singers in Chicago, but he was a decent vocalist himself. Hooker also battled tuberculosis for most of his life, which caused gaps in his playing career and eventually took his life at the too-young age of 40 in 1970.
A couple of years ago, the UK label Jasmine Records released The Electrifying Blues Guitar of Earl Hooker: Ride Hooker Ride 1953 - 1962. Hooker's recordings for Chief, Profile, and Age Records have been pretty well-documented over the years (see Paula Records' Blue Guitar) and they are often considered his best work. Most of them are included in this set, but the real treat with this set is the inclusion of 17 of his earliest recordings, several of which have never been issued on CD prior to this album. That includes ten tracks Hooker recorded for Sun Records with Pinetop Perkins on piano, Willie Nix on drums, and Boyd Gilmore on one vocal in 1953.
The sound on these recordings is actually better than the Chief, Profile, and Age tracks that are on the Paula release and Hooker is backed by a pretty impressive group of performers including Perkins, Nix, and Gilmore, Junior Wells, Johnny "Big Moose' Walker, A.C. Reed, Lafayette Leake, Fred Below, and Reggie Boyd. The instrumentals are just dynamite and find Hooker playing blues, country, and rockabilly. Two of the noteworthy previously unissued tracks are "Steel Guitar Rag" and "The Huckabuck," and it makes you wonder what in the world Sam Phillips was thinking when he put these songs on the shelf. If you are a fan of blues guitar, then you need some Earl Hooker in your collection and this is a great place to get started.
A lot of music lovers may not be familiar with the name Lowell Fulson, but the Oklahoma native was one of the most important artists on the post-war blues scene. He was a masterful songwriter, a warm, engaging vocalist, and a powerful guitarist. He made his mark on the West Coast blues scene after ending up in Oakland after serving in the Navy during World War II. He had played as a youth in Oklahoma with Texas Alexander before moving to Texas, where he worked as a cook and played weekend dances. When he went to the West Coast he, like many other guitarists, fell under the spell of T-Bone Walker.
His first hit, for Swing Time Records, was 1948's "Three O'Clock in the Morning Blues," later reworked by B.B. King as "Three O'Clock Blues." He also wrote a few more tunes that are recognized as blues standards, such as "Everyday I Have The Blues," "Blue Shadows," Lonesome Christmas," and "Sinner's Prayer," which Ray Charles made a hit. He also recorded for the Chess Records subsidiary Checker Records, with several more hits, including "Reconsider Baby," which became a #1 pop hit for Elvis Presley in 1960. Other tunes for Checker included "Hung Down Head," "Loving You," "Low Society," and "That's All Right."
In the mid 60's, Fulson recorded for Kent Records, as Lowell Fulsom. While at Kent, he recorded some of his biggest hits, including "Black Nights" and "Tramp," which was later covered by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas (both versions were big hits). These tunes enabled Fulson, or Fulsom, to move over to the soul circuit. In 1970, he signed with Jewel and recorded a blues-rock album with the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section.
Fulson continued to recorded sporadically through the 70's and 80's for various labels, now reverting back to his real last name of Fulson. He recorded a solid set for Rounder in 1988, It's a Good Day, and continued to write some great songs, including "Room With a View (of the Blues)," which he co-wrote with Billy Vera. It was recorded several times in the late 80's, my favorite version being Johnny Adams' from his album of the same title.
However, it's Fulson's later release on Rounder's Bullseye Blues imprint that I wanted to discuss this week, Hold On. While I enjoyed his previous release for Rounder, I have to admit that this album really hit me pretty hard.
First, a bit about the Bullseye Blues label.....it was founded in 1991 as a partnership with Rounder Records and Ron Levy, who served as producer and played keyboards on most of the albums released. The first releases that I saw for the label were from Charles Brown, Champion Jack Dupree, Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson and I snatched them all up, and many more to follow.
Mr. Levy certainly knew his way around the blues, having played for many years in B.B. King's band (Mr. Levy sat down with us for Ten Questions many years ago, check it out here) and, thanks in no small part to his efforts, the label's output was first-rate from its beginnings until the label shut down in the late 90's.
Jimmy McCracklin
Fulson wrote eight of the eleven tracks on Hold On, and they are all winners. He's joined on these tracks by another blues legend, his longtime friend Jimmy McCracklin. McCracklin enjoyed success on the pop and R&B charts in the 50's with his single "The Walk," which earned him an appearance on American Bandstand in 1957. He also wrote "Just Got To Know," and co-wrote "Tramp" with Fulson. He continued to record over the years and has a couple of Bullseye Blues releases of his own.
McCracklin contributes a pair of songs to Hold On and plays piano throughout, while Levy plays organ and produced. The horn section and rhythm section work is really what grabbed me on a lot of these tracks. Dubbed the Bullseye Blues Horns, they are led by trumpeter Joe Campbell who did the arranging and Bobby Forte provides tenor sax solos. South Central Rhythm does a wonderful job, adding a bit of tasty funk to the proceedings.
Fulson does a marvelous job on vocals, just as strong as they were during his peak period of the 50's and 60's, and his guitar work is, as always, tasteful and concise. He always seems to know what to play where and it's never at the expense of the song. I think that's another thing I like about Lowell Fulson. His songwriting and musical arrangements don't stick to blues traditions either. You might find yourself singing along with many of these after just a couple of listens.
Hold On won the BMA for Traditional Album of the Year in 1993. Fulson recorded one more album with Bullseye Blues in 1995, Them Update Blues, which was nominated for a Grammy Award. In the late 90's, he began battling health issues, among them diabetes, kidney disease, and congestive heart failure, and he passed away on March 7, 1999, at the age of 77. McCracklin remained active well into the 2000's before passing away at the age of 91 in 2012.
If you're not familiar with Lowell Fulson, you can pretty much start at any period of his career and find quality releases. His Chess recordings are standout and his 60's soul/R&B-oriented work is equally strong. However, Hold On is an excellent, often-overlooked set in his catalog that will reward blues fans with some wonderful moments.
Here are a few recent releases that are well worth any blues fan's time, so be sure to check them out. If you're able, try to buy a physical copy of these artists' music whenever possible. Most of them receive very little from the whole streaming process and if you're like me, you like the liner notes that come with the physical albums and it's just good to hold it in your hands. I know some people like the streaming process and that's fine, too, so support these musicians any way that you can.
A couple of months ago, Dan Penn released his latest album, Smoke Filled Room (The Last Music Company). It's a set of demos that Penn has recorded over the past few years, some of which were later recorded by other artists that you may recognize from their versions.....Irma Thomas, Joe Louis Walker, Dalton Reed, T. Graham Brown.... but truthfully nobody really sings a Dan Penn song as well as the man himself and he certainly delivers on these tunes.
The physical album also includes Penn's comments about each song, how they came about, etc.... Penn's collaborators on these tracks include Bucky Lindsey, Carson Whitsett, Gary Nicholson, Charlie Taylor, Swain Schaefer, and Bobby Emmons, most of whom provided musical support on these tracks as well. There are also a couple of gospel tracks and a Christmas song that closes out the disc, but the rest of the tunes fit snugly in the blues, soul, and country genres, as many of Penn's works are apt to do.
Dan Penn is a musical treasure and it's great that he has been able to release several albums over the past few years after focusing on songwriting and production for so many years. Back in May, Penn fell in his shop and broke his hip. He was incapacitated on the floor for about 12 hours before he was found. They performed successful surgery and he was released from rehab last weekend. He's planning to play his August 1 show in Vernon, AL with Spooner Oldham and I plan to be there to see him.
Several years ago, I really enjoyed an album released by Chicago blues man Russ Green. That album, City Soul, was one of the best blues albums of 2018. Coming to the blues after working in the film industry, Green was influenced as a harmonica player by Sugar Blue and Billy Branch, and has played and toured with John Primer and Lurrie Bell. He's also produced an album by Big Llou Johnson that won a Blues Music Award for Best New Artist, and has appeared on two albums from the Chicago Blues Harmonica Project.
Stone Cold (Overton Music) is Green's latest release and it includes ten original tunes that showcase his nimble harp playing and his soulful vocals. I have to say that it's even better than his debut release. It's chock full of Green's "Hendrixian" harp playing and his songwriting is even stronger this time around. This is a powerful and energetic set of contemporary blues that mixes soul, rock, and even a bit of jazz on a few tracks with his harp playing.
Backed by guitarists Giles Corey and Vince Agwada and keyboardist Joe Munroe with a rock-solid rhythm section of Vic Jackson (bass) and Felix "D-Kat" Pollard (drums), Stone Cold is the second winner in a row for Russ Green, who is hopefully on his way to making some noise on the blues scene.
At first glance, Seth James looks more like a country music artist with the cowboy hat, but there's much more to the picture. The Texas native, who also works as a cowboy, encompasses blues, soul, southern rock, R&B, and Americana with his musical attack. A couple of years ago, he released a marvelous tribute album to Delbert McClinton, covering 11 of the legend's songs backed by producer, keyboardist, guitarist, and songwriter Kevin McKendree, who worked with McClinton for over a quarter century.
Motormouth (Qualified Records) finds James teaming up with McKendree once again on 13 wonderful tracks, a mix of originals from James, McKendree, Gary Nicholson, and others, along with terrific covers of tunes by Colin Linden, Leon Russell, Don Bryant, Doc Pomus, and even Delbert McClinton, who also contributes vocals to one of his contributions.
This album is a treat from beginning to end, taking the best elements of Texas blues and swing, Memphis and Muscle Shoals soul, and even a dash of funky Louisiana flavoring. There's something for just about any music fan on Motormouth. Seth James is a talented singer and guitarist and if you enjoy the music of Delbert McClinton, James fits that style to a tee and then some, so check him out.
Our "Blast From The Past" selection this time doesn't venture too far into the past....it actually came out late last summer. Leonard "Lowdown" Brown was born in Arkansas and raised in Indiana and was part of a musical family....all of his brothers and sisters played and his father gave him his first guitar at the age of six. He moved to Houston in 1980 for work, but soon got into the city's blues scene, where he has been a mainstay ever since.
Brown didn't release an album until he was 70, 2023's Blues Is Calling Me, but he followed that fine release two years later with Lowdown Street Party (Music Maker Foundation). This one is produced by Jimbo Mathus, but according to Mathus there wasn't much for him to do. When he reached out to Brown about the album, Brown sent him 10 well-crafted demos, and the album was subsequently recorded in three days, keeping nearly every first take with few overdubs.
This is a seriously funky set of blues that has a biographical feel....Brown wrote all ten tracks. He's backed by Mathus on rhythm guitarist, Mathus' band - the Creatures of the Southern Wild, and backing vocalists The Crimestoppers. Though the songs are all newly written, the production has a nice, retro feel and the funkiness of it all just seeps into your backbone. I saw Lowdown Street Party on Amazon and bought it on impulse, having never heard Leonard "Lowdown" Brown. After hearing it, I went back and purchased his first album. Blues fans are advised to do the same. This is good stuff!!
