New Blues Review 8-19-25
By Jack Roy
Buddy Guy – Ain’t Done With The Blues (Silvertone Records)
Bio – “At age 88, Buddy Guy is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, a major influence on rock titans like Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, a pioneer of Chicago’s fabled West Side sound, and a living link to the city’s halcyon days of electric blues. Buddy Guy has received 7 GRAMMY Awards, a 2015 Lifetime Achievement GRAMMY Award, 37 Blues Music Awards (the most any artist has received), the Billboard Magazine Century Award for distinguished artistic achievement, a Kennedy Center Honor, and the Presidential National Medal of Arts. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #23 in its “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” Though Buddy Guy will forever be associated with Chicago, his story actually begins in Louisiana. One of five children, he was born in 1936 to a sharecropper’s family and raised on a plantation near the small town of Lettsworth, located some 140 miles northwest of New Orleans. Buddy was just seven years old when he fashioned his first makeshift “guitar”—a two-string contraption attached to a piece of wood and secured with his mother’s hairpins. In 1957, he took his guitar to Chicago, where he would permanently alter the direction of the instrument, first on numerous sessions for Chess Records playing alongside Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and the rest of the label’s legendary roster, and then on recordings of his own. His incendiary style left its mark on guitarists from Jimmy Page to John Mayer. “He was for me what Elvis was probably like for other people,” said Eric Clapton at Guy’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2005. “My course was set, and he was my pilot.” Seven years later, July 2012 proved to be one of Buddy Guy’s most remarkable years ever. He was awarded the 2012 Kennedy Center Honor for his lifetime contribution to American culture; earlier in the year, at a performance at the White House, he even persuaded President Obama to join him on a chorus of “Sweet Home Chicago.” Also in 2012, he published his long-awaited memoir, When I Left Home. Buddy Guy is a genuine American treasure and one of the final surviving connections to an historic era in the country’s musical evolution. “I worry a lot about the legacy of Muddy, Wolf, and all the guys who created this stuff,” he says. “I want people to remember them. It’s like the Ford car—Henry Ford invented the Ford car, and regardless how much technology they got on them now, you still have that little sign that says ‘Ford’ on the front. “One of the last things Muddy Waters told me—when I found out how ill he was, I gave him a call and said, ‘I’m on my way to your house.’ And he said, ‘Don’t come out here, I’m doing all right. Just keep the damn blues alive.’ They all told me that if they left here before I did, then everything was going to be on my shoulders. So as long as I’m here, I’m going to do whatever I can to keep it alive.” ”
Review – Unreal this man is still owning the Blues!! What a treasure we have, the striking thing is older artists kind of lose their voice a bit, their guitar playing tends to be less aggressive, but not Buddy!! He is strong as ever. His music is modern feeling while still connecting to the past. Buddy starts off this album with a short, acoustic, John Lee Hooker tune that sets the pace for a very electric album of noble levels. Mr. Guy has assembled a top notch team of musicians for this project. Besides superstar guests, Joe Walsh, Joe Bonamassa, Peter Frampton, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and the Blind Boys of Alabama, the album includes superb session artists Max Abams on saxophone, Kevin McKendree and Mike Rojas on keys, Steve Patrick on trumpet, Glen Worf on Bass and Rob McNelley with additional guitar. And if that power-packed lineup wasn’t enough, the album also includes former Jeff Beck bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, and Chuck Leavell of the Allman Brothers on B3. Standouts, although each song is an adventure and can stand by itself, “how Blues Is that with Joe Walsh on Slide Guitar and Voice, “It Keeps Me Young” with Peter Frampton on Guitar and Voice, and “Talk To Your Daughter”, an old J.B. Lenoir’s tune but I think my favorite is “Where U At″, with Kingfish, listen here. I will give this a 10+++ on Blues Content and a 10+++ on Music Content.
Rory Block – Heavy On The Blues (M.C. Records)
Bio – “Rory Block may not see herself the way her fans, the music world, and the press view her career. But seminal Blues guitarist Robert Johnson’s grandson Greg Johnson says, “When I hear Rory Block’s music, it’s as if my grandfather is here all over again.” Rolling Stone Magazine credited her with recording “some of the most singular and affecting Country Blues anyone, man or woman, black or white, old or young, has cut in recent years.” In a career that has thus far produced 36 albums, six Blues Music Awards, and numerous world tours, Rory Block’s fabled odyssey finds her at the absolute height of her talents, and at the top of the touring world, while at the same time living life as a music producer, author, ordained minister (she refers to it as “Preaching the Blues”), a music producer, festival promoter, mother, wife and friend to thousands at her ChurchLIVE venue in rural Chatham, New York. The Blues Foundation wrote “Today she is widely regarded as the top female interpreter and authority on traditional country blues worldwide.” It can easily be said that she is the best acoustic blues artist performing today, having been nominated in January 2020 for the Blues Foundation’s prestigious Koko Taylor Award as Traditional Female Blues Artist, coming off a 2019 award for the Acoustic Artist of The Year. Rory Block is the standard bearer for early American roots blues- a celebrated, multi award winning artist, and a songwriter whose originals ring with unadorned power and truth. Everything she performs becomes anointed, whether songs by legacy artists like Son House, Robert Johnson, or Bessie Smith. Asked how she finds the common denominator in the wide ranging styles and experiences she sings about, she responds “No matter what the outward circumstances, we all share in the same universal experiences, we’re all essentially rowing in the same boat, which is life. You can be an anointed painter. You can be an anointed writer or musician- it’s about doing what you love, and allowing a spirit to come through you that channels something bigger than you.” The New York Times called her playing “perfect, her singing otherworldly as she wrestles with ghosts, shadows and legends.” People Magazine said it simply, “If you like music steeped in tradition and genuine feeling, this is your woman.”
Review – I have been a big Rory Block fan for many years, some of those first few albums she put out were amazing to me. She is such a great guitarist, I have seen her many time in concert. I think her last album covering all Bob Dylan songs was a disaster, but she sort of makes up for it in this newest album. Much more in her wheel house of some great Blues tunes, covering people like Buddy Guy, Little Milton, Hendrix, Charley Patton and Memphis Minnie. She has also included three great guest musicians, Ronnie Earl, Jimmy Vivino and Joanna Conner. Overall, not a bad album. Her voice is a little strange to me on this album, I don’t think it works as well as when she covered Robert Johnson tunes in the past. The standouts for me is the Tommy Tucker tune “High Heal Sneakers”, “Hold To His Hand” and “Mississippi Blues”. She tries to cover “The Wind Cries Mary” with Joanna Conner, but it just a strange take on the tune. I think my favorite is “Me And My Chauffeur″, a Memphis Minnie tune but it is not online yet. I will give this a 9 on Blues Content and a 9 on Music Content.
Big Shoes – King Size (Quantified Records)
Bio – “The Big Shoes Band is a Nashville-based Americana Roots SuperGroup comprised of Triple A Studio & Touring Pros with traditional influences including the legendary Little Feat, greats like B.B King, Ray Charles, The Allman Brothers’ Band and Bonnie Raitt into their fan-pleasing original compositions and tastefully-arranged covers in their critically acclaimed live shows. Big Shoes began a fun and impressive journey that culminated in the release of their first album, “Shoes Blues” and most recently the critically acclaimed “Step On It!” album, released in 2018.Big Shoes members have played and recorded with Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, Delbert McClinton, Taj Mahal, Etta James, Bobby Blue Bland and many other great artists. Keyboardist, Mark T. Jordan was a band member on the Van Morrison classic album “Tupelo Honey”, Bonnie Raitt’s “Road Tested” live CD and scores of other albums that can only be classified as “music history.’ Guitarist Will McFarlane has contributed to albums by Levon Helm, Joss Stone, Bonnie Raitt and Bobby “Blue” Bland. Will resides in Muscle Shoals, AL and is in constant demand with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section, aka, “The Swampers.” Big Shoes lead singer, Rick Huckaby originally signed to the Warner Brothers label, has penned numerous top 10 hits for leading Nashville artists and is an active studio musician in town. The band is further complemented by A listers including guitarist Kenne Cramer, bassist Tom Szell, drummer Lynn Williams and percussionist Bryan Brock, each with impressive Nashville, Austin and Muscle Shoals studio and touring bonafides.In 2022, the band signed with the leading indie label Qualified Records, led by multi-Grammy winner and legendary Musician/producer/engineer/songwriter Kevin McKendree and his partner the ISSA nominated producer and bassist John Heithaus. FRESH TRACKS, their first release on the label, dropped in January 2023, and quickly amassed over 4 million spins on Soundcloud and charted #1 in Roots airplay in the US, Canada, The United Kingdom, Australia and France on leading internet, independent and iHeart terrestrial radio stations. Fresh Tracks was named as one for the Top 15 LPS of 2023 buy the Roots Music Report and was on the Ballot for a Grammy Nomination for 2023.As amazing as the individual talents are this is truly a case where the sum of the parts is even greater than the whole leading to one prominent reviewer to state “to call these guys a SuperGroup is a massive understatement – the reality is that they’re monster writers, great singers and a very, very tight unit!” As the late great Lowell George (and a huge influence in the band) might say if he were alive today: “They’ve got two degrees in bebop, a PhD in swing, they’re masters of rhythm and rock’n’roll kings!”
Review – This is surprise to me this week, definitely leaning towards Country but lots of great tunes with some Blues leaning. Many of these tunes are radio worthy and the writing is superb. The band is incredible including Lynn Williams on Drums, Will McFarlane on Guitar and Vocals, Bryan Brock on Percussion, Mark T Jordan on Keys and Vocals, Rick Huckaby on Lead Vocals and Guitar, Kenne Cramer on Guitar and Tome Szell on Bass. What really pulls this album together is the Muscle Shoals Horn Section, so good. Some of the best tunes were “Halfway To Memphis”, “Make It Easy On Yourself”, a Buckwheat Zydeco tune and “I I Don’t Need Nobody”. I think my favorite is “Too Many Bees″, a straight ahead Blues Tune, listen here. I will give this a 9 on Blues Content and a 10+ on Music Content.
Devon Allman Project – Blues Summit (Ruff Records)
Bio – “In the first 20 years of his recording career, Devon Allman has made one thing very clear. He doesn’t stand still. As an artist and performer, he is always on the move, eager to stretch his boundaries, forever on the lookout for new sources of inspiration and new musicians to collaborate with. That ethos has driven him to continually create and move on. That’s why his discography to date – though it includes a number of solo albums – also shows releases with Honeytribe (with whom he debuted in 2006) and southern rock supergroup Royal Southern Brotherhood as well as with the Allman Betts Band. The resumé is a work in progress, yet one that is already worthy of the musical legacy handed down to him by his late father Gregg Allman of the legendary Allman Brothers Band. In recent years, the hard-working singer, guitarist and songwriter has focused his attention on the Devon Allman Project, touring relentlessly and spreading groovy, feel-good vibes on the 2024 release entitled Miami Moon.”
Review – This is an incredible Electric Blues album if that is what your into, I am!! Devon’s Vocals are superb and the song writing is great. Add to that guest musicians like Kingfish, Robert Randolph, Larry McCray and Jimmy Hall. Most of the band includes Justin Corgan on Bass, John Lum on Drums, Sierra Green on Background Vocals, the Memphis Horns and John Ginty on Keys. Some of the standouts for me were “Blues Is A Feelin'”, “Real Love” with the incredible voice of Sierra Green, and “Hands And Knees” with Larry McCray on Gutiar and Voice. Definitely my favorite is “Get Greasy With It″, Funky Instrumental, listen here. I will give this a 9 on Blues Content and a 10 on Music Content.
Mr. Willy – Get Drunk And Go Home (Ecko Records)
Bio – “Coming out of Houston, TX with the first full length CD release of his career, is Southern Soul sensation and newest addition to the Ecko label, Mr. Willy. This superstar in the making has already achieved a tremendous amount of success with his first single release on Ecko entitled “She Got That Cougar Love”, featuring Ecko labelmate and the undisputed Queen of Southern Soul, Ms. Jody. The single has already garnered over one million plays on Youtube and continues to perform well at radio. Mr. Willy is a young man with a purpose who is pursuing his dream to become one of the top entertainers in the business. His list of accomplishments is steadily growing and his fan base increasing every day. Look out for the Mr. Willy train to roll its way to the top as it continues to pick up speed.”
Review – I tried not to like this album, but it is actually very entertaining but it sounds like most of music is done electronically without real musicians. Mr. Willy has a great voice, most of the music is not really Blues but still a pretty good CD if your into Soul or Beach Music. I think the only one that I would go back to listen to again is “Get Drunk And Go Home″, listen here. I will give this a 7 on Blues Content and a 7 on Music Content.
