Looking at few new ones that are well worth any blues fan's time, plus a great one you might have missed from a few years back. Here we go......
Two of my favorite blues and soul vocalists are Johnny Rawls and Dave Keller. I've been a big fan of Rawls since his Rawls & Luckett release on Rooster Blues in the early 90's (Can't Sleep at Night) and Keller since his appearance as a guest vocalist on Ronnie Earl's Living in the Light release on Stony Plain in 2009. Both men have recorded prolifically over the past 15 - 20 years and they've shared the stage many times over the years.
Thank goodness they finally decided to make an album together, and what an album it is! Tribute to Soul (Third Street Cigar Records) is an album any blues or soul music fan should have in their collection. Rawls and Keller have been friends for over 15 years and have toured together several times across the U.S,, but this is their first collaborative effort.
The song list pays tribute to many of Rawls' mentors, so there are tunes associated with Joe Tex, James Carr, Otis Clay, Eddie Floyd, Z.Z. Hill, Tommy Tate, O.V. Wright, Benny Lattimore, Little Johnny Taylor, Willie Hightower, and Jimmy Hughes. Some of the songs will be familiar to blues and soul fans, but there are several seldom-heard treasures that will become new favorite songs to many listeners. Rawls and Keller are both wonderful and Keller's band provides stellar support, with Keller on lead guitar throughout. I can't tell you how excited I was to get this CD. This is a long overdue collaboration and, hopefully, one that might reoccur from time to time in the future.
Sadly, there's no videos of the songs yet available on YouTube, but here's a Rawls/Keller combo from Keller's 2020 duet album What You Give - Duets (another great release) that will give you an idea of what to expect.
Friday Blues Fix interviewed Zac Harmon way back in 2012 and that Ten Questions With....can be seen here. He got his start in Jackson, MS on Farish Street, playing with local legends like Dorothy Moore, Sam Myers, and Z.Z. Hill before moving to Los Angeles in the 80's, where he worked as a musician, writer, and producer for the O'Jays, the Whispers, Karyn White, Alexander O'Neal, and Black Uhuru.
Despite his success, he longed to return to his roots, so he started recording the blues in the early 2000's. His band won the I.B.C.'s Best Unsigned Band award and I first caught up with him with his subsequent release, The Blues According to Zachariah, which won the 2006 Blues Music Award for Best New Artist Debut. He's been pretty prolific since that time, cutting albums for a host of labels including Blind Pig and Catfood Records.
His most recent release is Zac Harmon & The Drive Live, which was recorded at various shows in the U.S. and Europe and effectively captures Harmon and the band's energetic stage presence. Most of the songs are taken from Harmon's earlier releases, but several of them are from his earlier releases that blues fans might have missed the first time around. There are also a couple of crowd pleasers from his most recent releases as well. Harmon is in good voice and the band provides excellent support throughout the set. If you haven't experienced the superb blues and soul artistry of Zac Harmon, this is a fantastic place to get on board.
It always puts a hop in my step when I get a new album from the Sauce Boss. Also known as Bill Wharton, the Sauce Boss is a most interesting character. He's a master guitarist and his original tunes are always entertaining. His website EPK describes him as "a musician, a chef, a raconteur, and purveyor of gourmet hot sauce (Liquid Summer Datil Pepper Hot Sauce), a songwriter, and a standup comedian.
During his shows, he makes a pot of gumbo on stage during his performance (the recipe is on his website) and serves gumbo to the audience at the end of his gig. He's also the subject of the Jimmy Buffett song "I Will Play For Gumbo" and he's appeared in Living Blues, GQ, and Gourmet magazines, more than likely the only person ever to appear in all three.
The Sauce Boss' latest release is With Extra Sauce. The "extra sauce" consists of guitarist Neal Goree, bassist Kendrick Jacobs, and drummer Brett Cook, along with string arrangements that accompany a couple of the songs, eight of which are Sauce Boss originals. He plays marvelous slide guitar throughout (on one track, he plays a three-string cigar box guitar in a 9" cast iron frying pan), and his own songs are always a lot of fun. The two cover tunes are classics, but the Sauce Boss and friends put a fresh coat of paint on both. What a fun album! You can also hear more about the Sauce Boss via his memoir The Live and Times of Blind Boy Billy, which includes his story, along with songs and recipes.
Let's look back at a great release that you might have missed first time around....Johnny Heartsman'sThe Touch. Apparently, a lot of folks may have missed it. For some reason, I missed it as well. Heartsman played guitar, keyboards, and flute and played on many recordings in the San Francisco Bay area in the 50's and 60's while playing with Jimmy McCracklin, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Big Mama Thornton, Al King (check out his guitar on King's Atlantic single "Reconsider Baby"), Jimmy Wilson, Joe Simon, and Johnny Fuller. He had a hit of his own in 1957 with "Johnny's House Party (Parts 1 and 2)," on Music City Records which made it to #13 on the Billboard R&B chart.
Heartsman moved between blues and R&B in the 60's and 70's before settling into the blues groove in the late 80', when he released a solo album, Sacramento, that was well-received. In 1991, he recorded The Touch for Alligator with Dick Shurman serving as producer. When I interviewed Shurman years ago, he cited Heartsman as his favorite all-time blues musician. The album is a seamless mix of blues, soul, and jazz, probably not as much "Genuine Houserockin' Music" as normally associated with Alligator and that might have been some of the problem with it's popularity, or lack thereof.
It is a highly entertaining album that finds Heartsman on guitar, keyboards, and flute while providing solid vocals. There are some tracks that swing really well and I really like his work on the keys, which have a B3 flavor to them. While I've never really associated the flute with the blues, the tracks on which he plays flute work really well. I can remember Alligator head man Bruce Iglauer expressing his disappointment at the sales of The Touch in one of his Living Blues letters and I have to agree....it really deserved better. I wish I had picked it up back in the early 90's, but I'm glad to have it now and most blues fans will certainly enjoy it.
