New Blues & Soul News – 1/3/2017
New Blues and Soul News – 1/3/2017
The Jimmys – Live From Transylvania at Sighisoara Blues Festival (Brown Cow): The Jimmys are a seven piece blues band based in Wisconsin. This, their third disc, takes advantage of their tight group performance and the fire that often comes from live performance. Half of the songs are originals by leader/keyboard player/singer Jimmy Voegeli (one in collaboration) and the remainder are an interesting cross section of styles, including Jim Liban’s “You Can’t Hurt Me Anymore”, Mack Rice’s “Cold Women” and Robbie Robertson’s “Ophelia”. The band features Perry Weber (guitar, vocals), Mauro Magellan (drums), John Wartenweiler (bass), Darren Sterud (trombone, vocals), Charley Wagner (trumpet), and Pete Ross (sax). Click here to listen to samples of the songs on this disc.
Gaetano Letizia & The Underworld Blues Rock Band – Resurrection (Self-produced): Singer/composer/guitarist Letizia plays blues, funk and jazz-oriented music. He sings in a talkie style though he can open it up at times. His guitar playing is clearly his strongest point and while it’s often laid back, he can cross a lot of boundaries by adding rock and electronic sounds and he’s quite fluid. Other players include Larry Keller (bass), Steve Renko (drums), Bill Ransom (percussion), Bob Esterle (saxes), Mike Fisher (trumpet), and Tim Keehn (trombone) with Robin Stratton adding backing vocals. Click here to listen to samples of the songs on this disc.
Biscuit Miller – Wishbone (Self-produced): Singer/guitarist/songwriter Biscuit Miller has played in the bands of Sonny Rogers, Mojo Buford, and Lonnie Brooks. This disc is his third as a leader. The band members aren’t identified on this promo, but the instruments include guitar, keyboards and drums in support of Miller’s bass. Ronnie Baker Brooks guests on two songs and Uncle Jesse Hutson on another. The sound is straight up, unadulterated electric blues and it does swing really well at times. Click here to watch a live version of a song on this disc.
Popa Chubby – The Catfish (Self-produced): Roughly 25 years into his career and averaging a disc a year, guitarist/singer/songwriter Ted Horowitz (Papa Chubby) turns out his most recent blues rock opus. In addition to guitar, he also plays drums and bass on most of the songs and keyboards on one. He wrote ten of the twelve songs on offer. On the few songs that he doesn’t play everything, he is assisted by Dave Keyes (piano, organ); Dave Moore or Rich Monica (drums); and Matt Lapham (bass). Titian Horowitz adds trumpet on two cuts. Chubby is a blues ROCK player who can bring the funk and mix things up stylistically. He even offers a couple of jazzy numbers along the way. So, much more variety than you might expect and each genre is done well by its own standards. Worth checking out. Click here to check out a song from this disc.
New Soul:
The Olympians – The Olympians (Daptone): A new musical alignment for Daptone, The Olympians are a mellower aggregation than The Daptones, though they do have a few of the latter’s players including Homer Steinweiss (drums), Thomas Brenneck (guitar), Neal Sugarcane (tenor sax) and David Guy (trumpet). Other players are Toby Pazner (keyboards, vibes, bass, percussion); Nicholas Movshon (drums, bass); Leon Michaels (tenor sax); Michael Leonhart (trumpet); Aaron Johnson (trombone); Fernando “Bugalu” Velez (percussion); Megan Conley (harp); Antoine Silverman (violins); and Anja Wood (cello). Don’t expect the fire of the Daptones as this work is soulful but quite mild. Click here to listen to the opening song on this disc.
Kopasetically,
Professor Bebop
