New Blues Review 6-10-25
By Jack Roy
Alan Arena – Deceived (Self Produced)
Bio – “Musician, singer/songwriter, and artist Alan Arena had two top 10 New England albums when he moved away from Boston to become a caregiver for his best friend, a veteran who had been stricken with Huntington’s Disease. He thought performing original music might no longer be in his future, but when a venue and studio called The Music Room opened on Cape Cod, he decided to see if it might be a good place to record new material. It turned out to be the break he never found in Boston. Grammy-winning guitarist and producer Paul Nelson, who played for Johnny Winter for 14 years, was a partner in the venue, and they struck up a conversation. Paul asked Alan to play a couple of his original songs and, impressed, offered to produce Alan’s next recording.”
Review – This is a decent CD, not a great one. Lyrics are great, you can tell he has a great grasp for writing. Music is kind of boring to me, kind of swinging between country, pop and some Blues. Again, not horrible. Joining Alan is Paul Nelson on Guitar, Brad Hallen on Bass, Marty Richards on Drums, Brooks Milgate on Keys plus a few others including the world famous Jerry Portnoy on Harmonica. “Deceived” and “Mother Earth” kind of stood out to me but I think my favorite is “Devil In The Bottle″, I couldn’t find this online to share but here is another tune from his album before this one “Back To The Crossroads”, listen here. I will give this an 8 on Blues Content and an 8 on Music Content.
The Alexis P. Suter Band – Just Stay High (Nola Records)
Bio – “Three-time Blues Music Award (BMA) nominee including the ‘Koko Taylor’ and Best Soul Blues Female Artist award categories, Alexis P. Suter is an American blues, and soul blues singer-songwriter. Raised in Brooklyn, NY by a musically gifted family, Alexis P Suter was infused with the passion and belief that music is to be an emotional and spiritual experience. Miss Suter brings an abundance of love and energy into each of her performances. Alexis P. Suter owns that big, booming voice heard roaring out of Brooklyn and straight into the heart of North America and beyond. Her voice ranges from a pained passion to explosive and soul bearing. She and her backing band have released six albums to date. The Alexis P. Suter Band, a powerful and unique six-piece ensemble, artfully blends the lines between Blues, Soul and Rock music. The band burst on to the music scene with regular performances at Levon Helm’s legendary Midnight Rambles in Woodstock, NY. ”
Review – Now, here is a voice!! So real, very Gospel like and man can he tell a story. I think Alexis could sing anything and make it sound great. With Alexis is Vicki Bell on Vocals, Jimmy Bennett on Guitar, Peter Bennett on Bass, Ray Grappone on Drums and Daniel Weiss on Keys. Very Psychedelic Blues, I love it. She has such a deep voice for a female singer, but it sounds so great. Standouts for me are all the songs, but if I had to chose then “Breathe”, “it Ain’t Easy” and “4 Wheels Beats 2 Heels” but then I think my favorite is “God Gave Me The Blues″, listen here. I will give this a 10 on Blues Content and a 10+ on Music Content.
Rusty Ends & Hillbilly Hoo Doo – Roadhouses, Juke Joints and Honky-Tonks (Earwig)
Bio – “Rusty Ends is the real deal, a true link between the rock and blues of the 50’s and 60’s and the 21st century. Rusty learned his craft as a teenager playing in the bars and taverns up and down Dixie Highway between Louisville and Fort Knox. The audiences were made up of a combination of soldiers, bikers, laborers, hustlers and working ladies (a vocal, volatile and sometimes lethal combination). The band had to play a combination of blues, soul and country and do it all with a beat that allowed the topless dancers to keep gyrating. With every gig Rusty improved and soon was asked to join The Premiers, a popular club band. This launched a long career in the once vital Louisville club scene. In 1969 he did his first recording session with the band Cooper ‘n’ Brass at Phillips International Recording Studio in Memphis Tn. owned by legendary Rock ‘n’ Roll pioneer Sam Phillips. The record was “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is”, a regional hit in the southeast and one of the most popular records in dance clubs in the northeast. In the early 90’s Rusty decided he wanted to focus on his first love ……….. The Blues and was a founding member of the Rusty Spoon Blues Band. It was also at this time that Rusty started to take song writing seriously. Rusty has backed up some legendary performers including The Shirelles, The Drifters, Bobby Lewis, The Coasters, The Marvelettes and The Little River Band. At Blues Festivals he has played on bills that included Koko Taylor, Otis Rush, The Excello Blues All Stars (along with many other legends) and has played in recording sessions behind Kelly Richey, Robbie Bartlett, Wayne Young, and the great Blues Man Eddie Kirkland. Around 2010 Rusty disappeared from the music scene. When Rusty disappeared it was rumored he lived in the Everglades and studied Native American mysticism with an old Seminole Medicine Man. Rusty has never confirmed or denied this rumor. Another rumor, one that Rusty denies, is that he was first mate on a shrimp boat. In his denial of this rumor Rusty stressed the point that he would never work that hard. Rusty reappeared five years later when a long time friend and sometimes band mate David Zirnheld asked him to play at church services with him. Together they played a unique blend of traditional hymns and original material, and this was the spark that reignited the desire and Rusty was back!”
Review – Another CD that is just ok this week. Rusty doesn’t have an award winning voice and his music is very rudimentary, not much imagination on this one. Rusty holds down most of the vocals and Guitar with help from Dave Zirnhel on Bass and Vocals, Gene Wickliffe on Drums, Roosevelt Purifoy on Keys, and Wayne Young on Guitar. There is not much here that excites me, so here is a tune called “Cheap Wine″ from another album, listen here. I will give this a 7 on Blues Content and a 6 on Music Content.
Taj Mahal & Keb Mo – Room On The Porch (Concord)
Bio – Keb Mo – “With five Grammy Awards, 14 Blues Foundation Awards, and a groundbreaking career spanning nearly 50 years under his belt, Keb’ Mo’s got nothing left to prove. Just don’t tell him that. “I may be turning 70,” Keb’ reflects, “but I’m still breathing and I’m still hungry. I’m still out there going for it every single day.” Born and raised in Compton, Keb’ began his remarkable journey at the age of 21, when he landed his first major gig playing with Jefferson Airplane violinist Papa John Creach. For the next 20 years, Keb’ would work primarily behind the scenes, establishing himself as a respected guitarist, songwriter, and arranger with a unique gift for linking the past and present in his evocative playing and singing. In 1994 he would introduce the world to Keb’ Mo’ with the release of his widely acclaimed self-titled debut. Critics were quick to take note of Keb’s modern, genre-bending take on old school sounds, and two years later, he garnered his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album with Just Like You. In the decades to come, Keb’ would take home four more GRAMMY Awards; top the Billboard Blues Chart seven times; perform everywhere from Carnegie Hall to The White House; collaborate with many including Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, and Lyle Lovett; have compositions recorded and sampled by artists as diverse as B.B. King, Zac Brown, and BTS; release signature guitars with both Gibson and Martin; compose music for television series like Mike and Molly, Memphis Beat, B Positive, and Martha Stewart Living; and earn the Americana Music Association’s 2021 award for Lifetime Achievement in Performance. In addition to his extraordinary musical output, Keb’ also established himself as a captivating onscreen presence over the years, appearing as himself in Martin Scorcese’s The Blues, Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, and even the iconic children’s series Sesame Street. He flexed his acting chops in a wide variety of projects, as well, portraying Robert Johnson in the 1998 documentary Can’t You Hear The Wind Howl, Howlin’ Wolf on CMT’s Sun Records, and the ghostly bluesman Possum in John Sayles’ 2007 film Honeydripper. A fixture on late night TV and award show stages, Keb’ has also performed on Letterman, Leno, Conan, Colbert, and Austin City Limits in addition to appearing on nationally televised broadcasts from The Kennedy Center, The Ryman Auditorium, and Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Festival. A passionate philanthropist and outspoken activist, Keb’ has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in support of social, environmental, and racial justice throughout his career. As a celebrity mentor with The Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts Program, which began under the guidance of First Lady Michelle Obama and the President’s Committee for the Arts and Humanities, Keb’ “adopted” The Johnson School for Excellence in Chicago, where he teamed up with teachers, students, and parents to help develop a thriving arts education program, and as a longtime ambassador for the Playing For Change Foundation, he’s supported the non-profit from its early days in its quest to provide free music education and basic needs like food, water, medicine, clothing, books, and school supplies to children around the world.
Taj Mahal – Taj is a towering musical figure — a legend who transcended the blues not by leaving them behind, but by revealing their magnificent scope to the world. “The blues is bigger than most people think,” he says. “You could hear Mozart play the blues. It might be more like a lament. It might be more melancholy. But I’m going to tell you: the blues is in there.” If anyone knows where to find the blues, it’s Taj. A brilliant artist with a musicologist’s mind, he has pursued and elevated the roots of beloved sounds with boundless devotion and skill. Then, as he traced origins to the American South, the Caribbean, Africa, and elsewhere, he created entirely new sounds, over and over again. As a result, he’s not only a god to rock-and-roll icons such as Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones, but also a hero to ambitious artists toiling in obscurity who are determined to combine sounds that have heretofore been ostracized from one another. No one is as simultaneously traditional and avant-garde. Quantifying Taj’s significance is impossible, but people try anyway. A 2017 Grammy win for TajMo, his collaboration with Keb’ Mo’, brought his Grammy tally to three wins and 14 nominations, and underscored his undiminished relevance more than 50 years after his solo debut. Blues Hall of Fame membership, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association, and other honors punctuate his résumé. He appreciates the accolades, but his motivation lies elsewhere. “It’s not a hunger, not a lust or even a thirst,” Taj says of what drives him. “It’s just more knowledge of self — to realize that almost everything is right here. We’re so used to looking outside of ourselves for things, and it’s right here.”
Review – How can you go wrong with Taj Mahal and Keb Mo, some of the most interesting voices in Blues and both with a stellar career. This is a hot sunny day relaxed feeling album that is just so smooth. These two always create magic when they are together. You get a big band feel and a strip down Blues feel and everything in between on this Album. Standouts for me were “Room On The Porch”, “Thicker Than Mud” and “Nobody Knows You When Your Down And Out”. I think my favorite is “Rough Time Blues″, a Jontavious Willis Tune, listen here. I will give this a 10+ on Blues Content and a 10+ on Music Content.
Samantha Fish – Paper Doll (Rounder)
Bio – “Samantha Fish is an American guitarist and singer-songwriter from Kansas City, Missouri. While often cited as a blues artist, Fish’s work features and draws from multiple genres, including rock, country, funk, bluegrass, and ballads. In 2009, Fish recorded and produced Live Bait. The live album attracted the attention of a talent company, who recommended her to Ruf Records. Ruf Records put together a record with Fish and two other female blues artists, Cassie Taylor and Dani Wilde, titled Girls with Guitars. The three guitarists then toured on the Ruf Records 2011 Blues Caravan in the U.S. and Europe. Fish continued touring with the Samantha Fish Band, featuring “Go-Go Ray” Pollard on drums and Chris Alexander on bass, playing in Europe and the United States. In 2011, Fish recorded Runaway with the help of her mentor Mike Zito. The album won the 2012 Blues Music Award for Best New Artist. Fish appeared on Devon Allman’s 2013 album Turquoise in a duet covering the Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks’ song “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”. During the summer of 2013, Fish was called up on stage to play with a skeptical Buddy Guy who was so impressed with her playing on the guitar, he declared with a beaming smile to his audience, “When this kind of shit happens, I’ll play all night!” In 2013, Fish released her second major studio album, Black Wind Howlin’, featuring Mike Zito on guitar, Yonrico Scott on drums, Johnny Sansone on harmonica, and Paul Thorn, vocal duet on one track. The album was recorded in Dockside Studios, in Maurice, Louisiana. Zito’s bandmates from his group Royal Southern Brotherhood, Yonrico Scott and Charlie Wooton, were brought in to assist in the session recordings. Also in 2013, Fish appeared on The Healers Live at Knuckleheads Saloon, producing a CD/DVD collaboration with Jimmy Hall, Reese Wynans, Kate Moss, and Danielle and Kris Schnebelen (sister and brother, formerly of the band Trampled Under Foot). Proceeds benefit the Blue Star Connection. The Healers occasionally perform together as their schedule permits.”
Review – I have never been a huge Samantha Fish fan, but this album has me very intrigued. Samantha checks every box on this one, her voice has matured to and excellent instrument, her guitar playing is at it’s peak so far in her career and the lyrics are superb. She gets such a strong, funky blues riffs to be the backbone of every song and then just builds on each tune. Many great tunes on this one but standouts for me were “Can Ya Handle The Heat”, “Rusty Razor” and “I’m Done Runnin’” but my favorite is “Fortune Teller″, has kind of spooky feel with some amazing guitar licks, listen here. I will give this a 10 on Blues Content and a 10+ on Music Content.
