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From sweet blues to gritty, stomping, blues-rocking beats, and now having seven nominations in the Independent Blues Awards, a Western Australian Music Award win and three back-to-back Number One Australian Blues albums, this is a breakout Australian blues artist you do not want to miss out on seeing.
The Matty T Wall band returns to the stage more motivated and addictively electric than ever with two killer rhythm legends of the scene, Ric Whittle on drums and Leigh Miller on bass guitar.
While the music that Matty plays has roots in the past, he is a very much an artist in the present. Through his reverence for historic musical forms, he is not emulating, but redefining these sounds, as he introduces classic genres to new listeners and invests them with his own trademark.
Lettuce is a New York-based funk jam band whose members have been successful together as well as individually. The collective's driving, good-time party music and magnetic live performances have been witnessed on recordings and radio programs, in clubs and concert halls, and on festival stages all over the globe. Utilizing hip-hop, jazz, New Orleans R&B, blues, and rock in their gumbo, this outfit updated the sound of classic '70s funk for a new generation. The band's founding members include guitarists Eric Krasno and Adam "Shmeeans" Smirnof, keyboardist Neal Evans, drummer Adam Deitch, saxophonists Ryan Zoidis and Sam Kininger, and bassist Erick "E.D." Coomes. The band's debut long-player, Outta Here, wasn't released until 2002, on their tenth anniversary. By the time of its release, Krasno and Neal Evans, were working members of Soulive, and Deitch had been a member of John Scofield's road band for a while. But recording seemed to be the least of Lettuce's career concerns. They continued to tour the globe and work on side and joint projects for another six years before Rage! appeared on Velour. Two decades after they began, they entered the jazz album charts at number six with 2012's Fly, and three years later topped them with Crush. In 2017, after a quarter-century together, they issued their live tribute to Miles Davis with Witches Stew, before returning to the studio for 2019's Elevate and 2020's Resonate.
Lettuce got together in 1992 while still in their teens. They were attending a summer program at Boston's Berklee College of Music and were drawn together by a mutual love of Earth Wind & Fire, Tower of Power, and jazz-funk acts like Headhunters. Staying in touch and informally jamming together over the next year, they reassembled formally in 1994 upon returning to Berklee as undergrads. A live set was put together and members went door to door at jazz clubs asking owners to "let us play." Their name derives from those origins. Lettuce eventually got their chance. They made good on it with fine material and an energetic live show. They got lots of local work. As word spread, they also built a reputation in New York first, and eventually in San Francisco and Tokyo. They toured as much as possible for the next eight years. In the interim, Krasno, Evans, and Kininger formed the groove trio Soulive, Lettuce's brother band.
Deitch is also a member of Break Science and has played with everyone from John Scofield and 50 Cent to Talib Kweli and Wyclef Jean. Coomes, a California native, is a noted producer, musical director for Anthony Hamilton's band, and a touring bassist for Britney Spears and the Game. Veteran trumpeter Rashawn Ross (another Berklee alum) joined the band as a part-time member (he was already working as a touring musician elsewhere). The group issued Live in Tokyo, recorded at Japan's Blue Note. Lettuce toured whenever feasible, given the bandmembers' other commitments, making their shows bona fide events. Rage! was issued in 2009. Also receiving nearly universal critical notice, it served to enhance the band's reputation on the live circuit -- especially when they played as part of a one-two punch with Soulive. Kininger left both groups in 2010. Ross became a full-time member of Dave Matthews Band, and was replaced by full-time trumpeter Eric "Benny" Bloom in 2011.
In 2012, Lettuce released Fly. The album featured an extended reading of War's classic "Slipping Into Darkness," and offered a moving and sophisticated tribute to the legendary New Orleans arranger and composer Zigaboo Modeliste entitled "Ziggawatt." Another track, "Jack Flask," illustrated on vinyl what the band had been exploring live for some time: an emergent post-psychedelic influence. Lettuce played with the Soul Rebels Brass Band on Jam Cruise 2013 and eventually re-entered the recording studio with co-producer/engineer Joel Hamilton. They brought in Ross as a second trumpeter. Crush featured a guest vocal appearance from Tedeschi Trucks Band's Alecia Chakour on a wild update of Bobbie Gentry's "He Made a Woman Out of Me," offering the band's first recorded nod to EDM. The rest of the set mixed bass-heavy funk and groove jazz, hip-hop beats, and guitar- and keyboard-heavy psychedelia. Crush was released in November of 2015 and hit the top spot on U.S. jazz album charts. A year later, a seven-track EP of new tracks and Crush session B-sides was issued. Mt. Crushmore featured Alecia Chakour on "The Love You Left Behind." Recorded live at the 2016 Catskill Chill in Lakewood, Pennsylvania, the 2017 concert LP Witches Stew celebrated the works of Miles Davis. In 2019, the band released their eclectic sixth studio long-player, Elevate, which featured guest spots from Marcus King and Nigel Hall. The set was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Contemporary Instrumental album. The Russ Elevado-produced Resonate arrived in 2020.
If you like your blues loud, raw and unconventional, then Marc Amacher is the just the thing for you. Those traits go a long way in defining this exceptional Swiss musician and were more apparent than ever on "Roadhouse" the 2019 release with which he toured successfully in several European countries. Now, two years later, he's back with a new album and ready to conquer the international scene: Together with colleagues Norman Süsstrunk (bass), Dave Flütsch (drums) und Phipu Gerber (guitar), Amacher pushes the blues envelope on "Grandhotel".
The Groove Krewe, featuring Nick Daniels III from Dumpstaphunk, drops a ton of seriously funky New Orleans R&B all over their new release Run To Daylight
The group is run by South Louisiana masterminds Rex Pearce and Dale Murray, who are both top musicians, producers, and songwriters who have seen their original songs find homes in films, on national TV, and on the radio. For this project that features lights-out vocalist and bassist Nick Daniels III of Dumpstaphunk, Pearce and Murray assembled an agile and talented bunch of Louisiana’s best players and dubbed them The Groove Krewe for reasons that will become obvious once you start listening. The sessions went down at Techno Sound Studios in Baton Rouge with Grammy-nominated engineer Nelson Blanchard at the board and were mixed in New Orleans by Grammy Award winner David Farrell.
Daniels is an absolute monster of a musician with a strong, soul-drenched voice and bass chops that have led him to gigs with The Neville Brothers, Uptown All-Stars, Zachary Richard, The Wild Magnolia Indians, Allen Toussaint, and Etta James. With Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Daniels has played major venues across the USA and opened for The Dave Matthews Band and The Rolling Stones. He has more than earned his place in the firmament of New Orleans music and brings a lot to this particular party. The Groove Krewe lineup of drummer Eddie Bayers, percussionist Nelson Blanchard, lead guitarist Jonathon “Boogie” Long, rhythm guitarist Rex Pearce, keyboardist Nelson Blanchard, and the horn section of Jason Parfait and Ian Smith completes the picture and puts out nothing but horsepower on every tune here.
The record kicks off with its title song and lead single “Run To Daylight.” The cut is a blues-based funk workout that’s driven by Daniels’ big vocal tone and super-funky bass lines. Between those extremes, the horns kick and blast, the guitars slice and scream, and the drums supply one heck of a heartbeat. Daniels’ sonic presence on the lead vocal mic is undeniable and he has the tight phrasing and strong belt needed to surf on top of this mighty band with style and grace.
“That’s New Orleans” is another rump-shaking funk track that extols the virtues of life in The Big Easy and the people who make the city what it is. When you hear it, you’ll start thinking about getting yourself back down there and diving into the Louisiana lifestyle. Daniels’ bass work is especially important to this song and he provides much of its authentic feel.
The Groove Krewe shifts into a delectable 70s soul vibration on the kinetic “Have A Party.” It’s one of those happy, dance-til-you-drop songs that sends spirits soaring and makes this world worth living in. It’s slick, upbeat, and nothing but fun. Daniels turns in perhaps his strongest vocal performance of the album on this amazing track, filling center stage with his life-affirming magic. If this one doesn’t get you out of your seat, please seek medical attention.
The shuffling “Sweet Situation” is another spotlight for Daniels’ fine bass playing and his lines are beyond reproach. He powers through this dance floor track like a hurricane and takes us along for the ride. Backed by The Groove Krew, he seems to be able to rock the joint at will and makes everything he touches come to life. Other must-hear highlights on the record include “I’m Gonna Prove My Love” and “Raising Cane On The Bayou.” Run To Daylight is a wildly-entertaining set that’s here to shake your bones all summer long. Don’t miss a second of it.
Fantastic Negrito's upcoming album and short film "White Jesus Black Problems" was inspired by a search into his ancestry where he found that his 7th generation grandmother was a Scottish indentured servant who entered into a common law marriage with an African American enslaved man, his 7th generation grandfather, in open defiance of the racist laws of 1750's colonial Virginia.
Their love story is a healing testament to standing up against inhumane and brutal systems with love as your only weapon. Their perseverance is a lesson in today's polarized society on the virtues of constant struggle in the face of ignorance, fear, and violence, which is still present in the contemporary embodiments of white supremacy, bigotry, and hatred. It's important to tell the story of how those who suffered much greater indignities and violence than we do in contemporary times were nonetheless able to preserve their humanity through human connection and the determination to love. If they can do it in 1759, we can do it 2022.
The Sheepdogs return with straight ahead pandemic rock ‘n’ roll that won’t bum
you out because it saved them—and maybe it will save you, too
Hailing from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, The Sheepdogs are a hard-working, hardliving, straight-up rock ‘n’ roll band who return with Outta Sight, the grooviest, simplest, most penetrating album of their career. Recorded during the pandemic the band — Ewan Currie, Ryan Gullen, Sam Corbett, Jimmy Bowskill and Shamus Currie — were, like the rest of us, confused, cast ashore, and feeling isolated
during COVID. Their response was to do what came most naturally to them: making stripped-down rock ‘n’ roll.
“It’s a weird world. Everybody stuck in place, overthinking absolutely everything. We wanted to avoid all that — just get in the room, plug in your guitar and go. So that’s what we did,” says singer Ewan Currie, who cut most of the album’s tracks in three takes. “Themes like optimism in the face of adversity, standing tall and staying strong, knowing that better times are around the corner kept coming through when making the record and it felt really damned good to play.”
Responding to the pandemic — the fear, the lack of income for a group that earns their living playing hundreds of annual shows — The Sheepdogs did what was instinctual to them, they started jamming like they did in their teens. With no roadmap and an overall uncertainty hanging over the universe, the band got in a circle, plugged into their amps, shared riffs and melodies and leaned on each
other. The guys say it was the least prepared they’ve been cutting a record since their self-titled album in 2012. Bassist Ryan Gullen calls the music they made a life-raft.
“Those first sessions saved us from our anxieties — like, when there’s nothing you can do and no one knows what’s happening, playing rock music kept us grounded, kept us going,” says Gullen, adding that this record is the freest he felt since performing his band’s 2006 debut, Trying to Grow. “We’ve developed this ability to gut check one another about what’s working. Not in the sense, ‘Is this song going to be a radio hit?’ We’re not playing that game, but over all these years, we’re happy to put our head down and grind. What you see is what we are. We’re not pretending. We make music we like because it’s important to us.”
Despite their incredible legacy which includes #1 songs, gold and platinum albums, countless sold-out tours and landing the cover of Rolling Stone, the group never put on airs and never stopped trusting each other — getting better at their craft and performing before as many fans as they could reach around the world.
On Outta Sight, a barn-burner that finds the band back to its roots after the psychedelic exploration of Changing Colours, the music is instinctive, groovebased and fundamental: no over-thinking muddling the riffs. Songs like I Wanna Know You and Scarborough Street Fight appeal to the senses. Its feel-good music made to help them, and the listener, celebrate life.
“The band still operates under the same principle we were founded on: dudes who like to rock, making rock music that sounds like what we like to listen to because there’s nothing like that around us.” adds Gullen, who says there’s a vibe, not a concept, driving his record. “Recording time is usually so preciously slotted between being on the road, but this time, when there was no road, things evolved naturally. We worked out a song until it felt good and then recorded it. The songs benefiting from the pressure being taken off guys, who love playing to each other’s strengths.”
The might of The Sheepdogs at full throttle exhilarates your senses. Without pretension, it’s urgent, rhythmic and fun. It’s a break from slick production and gazing at your navel; proclaiming joy with the jubilation of drums, bass, horns, and electric guitar. The Sheepdogs make tunes that make you nod your head with artistry beneath the stadium scale riffs. With harmonies, multiple guitar parts and a groove behind a rhythm section that hangs out together even when they’re not on the clock. It is battle-honed and spit-shined between vans, garages, thousands of soundchecks and, yes, headlining shows.
“A no-bullshit approach, a workman-like ability to put our heads down and just play resulted in a real feeling and vibe on the record that I think is special.” says Currie “It’s something that just might have saved us, and the feeling on the album is us taking that negative pandemic energy and expressing it, transferring it, through non-bummer straight ahead rock ‘n’ roll.”
Outta Sight is the biggest, brightest, beer-swillingest, lighters lit in the cheap seats, non-bummer COVID stadium rock record to emerge from the pandemic blues. It’s got humour, it’s got chops, and it’s performed and recorded by five brothers from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan who are grateful to get together and play for rock fans.
“Rock ‘n’ Roll is about cheering us up. Simple as that,” says Currie. “We hope our music does the same for the listeners at a time where things still can feel very tough. There’s no greater truth than rock ‘n’ roll.”
Mississippi-born, Memphis-raised, Grammy Award-winning music legend Charlie Musselwhite will release ‘Mississippi Son,’ his new Alligator Records CD and LP, on Friday, June 3. Musselwhite is renowned worldwide as a master harmonica player, a seasoned, truth-telling vocalist and an original songwriter rooted deep within the blues tradition. As many of his fans know, he’s also a country blues guitarist of great depth, warmth and subtlety. On each of Mississippi Son’s 14 songs, including eight powerfully stark originals, Musselwhite’s straight-from-the-soul vocals and deep blues harmonica playing are the perfect foil to his deceptively simple, hypnotic guitar work, which he features on every track. Mississippi Son’s first single, the autobiographical original Blues Gave Me A Ride, will be released on Friday, May 6.
Having recently moved back to Mississippi from northern California, Musselwhite recorded Mississippi Son in Clarksdale, right in the heart of the Delta. His honest, soulful vocals, like his every-note-matters harmonica playing and idiosyncratic guitar work, overflow with hard-earned authenticity and lasting emotional intensity. Musselwhite calls his blues, “secular spiritual music,” a sound he’s been perfecting since he, as a young teenager, played his first E7 chord on his Supertone acoustic guitar. Upon hearing and feeling the chord’s blue note, the future blues master thought, “I have to have more of that.”
Charlie Musselwhite doesn’t just sing and play the blues; he is, in every sense of the word, a bluesman. Growing up, he not only learned the music first-hand from many of the genre’s most influential artists, he also absorbed the lifestyle. “It’s an attitude,” Musselwhite says of playing the blues. “A way of living life.” Musselwhite’s life story reads like a classic blues song: born in Mississippi, raised in Memphis and schooled on the South Side of Chicago. A groundbreaking recording artist since the 1960s, Musselwhite has never stopped creating trailblazing music while remaining firmly rooted in the blues.
Over the years, Charlie has released nearly 40 albums on a variety of labels, his exploratory recordings including straight blues but often mixing in elements of jazz, gospel, Tex-Mex, Cuban and other world musics. Four of those albums—1990’s Ace Of Harps, 1991’s Signature, 1994’s In My Time, and 2010’s The Well—were released on Alligator Records and remain among his best-selling titles.
In 2020, Musselwhite joined up with his friend Elvin Bishop and released the Grammy-nominated, Blues Music Award-winning 100 Years Of Blues on Alligator. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart. DownBeat named it the Best Blues Album Of The Year. It was named the #3 Best Blues Album of 2021 by UK tastemaker magazine MOJO, who declared, “These are exquisite harmonica-guitar duets like Muddy Waters and Little Walter, or Johnny Shines and Big Walter Horton…mature, masterly, endlessly rewarding.”
In addition to his own albums, Musselwhite has been featured on recordings by Tom Waits, Eddie Vedder, Ben Harper, John Lee Hooker, Bonnie Raitt, The Blind Boys of Alabama, INXS, Cyndi Lauper, and many others. He was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Blues Hall Of Fame in 2010, has been nominated for twelve Grammy Awards (winning one) and has won numerous Living Blues Awards and Blues Music Awards. The Chicago Tribune says his music is “imaginative and stunning…utterly convincing.”
Now, with Mississippi Son, Musselwhite has come full circle, returning home to Mississippi after decades in Memphis, Chicago, San Francisco and points in between. Amalgamating all he’s learned and absorbed throughout his years of worldwide touring, Musselwhite imparts sage wisdom in every song he writes, sings and performs. “Blues tells the truth in a world that’s full of lies,” he intones in Blues Gave Me A Ride, at once telling his own story and plainly summing up the genre’s timelessness. Through his evocative vocals, masterful harmonica playing, and note-perfect Southern country blues guitar, Charlie Musselwhite, on Mississippi Son, leans forward and delivers the blues’ honest truth.
Op 3 juni 2022 verschijnt het derde album van Ticket West, de bluesband rondom de broers Pascal en Walter Wilhelm. Het album is getiteld “49 Park St. Blues” en een tweetal singles (“l Did You Wrong” en “Good Woman”) zijn op alle streamingsdiensten al te beluisteren. Waar de voorgangers “Highclass Horse” (2O20) en “Cab Driving Man” (2021)* nog leunden op een mix van West Coast – en Chicago blues laat het nieuwe album een nog gevarieerder geluid horen met dit keer uitsluitend eigen werk.
Naast zangeres Laura Kits en zanger Arjen Veldman nodigden de broers voor het nieuwe album harmonicaspeler Bas Kleine en saxofonist Wouter Schueler uit. Toetsenist Roel Spanjers en drummer Kees van Herk waren dit keer ook weer van de partij. Het album werd opgenomen in de Vuurland Studio in Utrecht en geproduceerd door Erny Green, die ook voor de vorige twee albums tekende.
Verschil met de vorige albums is dat het uitsluitend eigen werk bevat. De nummers gaan over over oude en nieuwe liefde, ouder worden en de dood. De bluesstijlen waarvan Ticket West zich bedient zijn dit keer nog gevarieerder en het album komt ook op vinyl uit.
Ticket West is het verhaal van twee broers die in hun jonge jaren luisterden naar bluesoptredens die hun vader opnam van de radio. ln 1984 (ze waren toen 14 en 11) nam hij een concert op van Jimmy Johnson en Billy Boy Arnold die optraden in Nick Vollebregt’s jazz Café in Laren. Hij gebruikte hiervoor een grote bandrecorder die in de huiskamer stond. Voor zijn verjaardag ging zijn vrouw naar de platenwinkel. Ze kwam thuis met platen van Albert King (King of the blues guitar) en Lightnin’ Hopkins. Deze platen raakten een snaar bij de oudste broer die op dat moment klassiek gitaarles had. De platen werden grijs gedraaid, de oudste broer kon binnen de kortste keren alle solo’s van Albert hardop nazingen. Hij wist: dit wil ik ook. De broers hadden twee vrienden (ook broers) die gitaar en drums speelden. De oudste broer koos voor de bas en overtuigde zijn jongere broer dat hij wel kon zingen. Een band was geboren. Maar na een paar jaartjes repeteren en een handvol optredens ging de band uit elkaar. De broers kozen allebei een eigen muzikaal pad, maar ze wisten dat ze ooit weer bij elkaar zouden komen om muziek te maken. Na dertig jaar was die tijd daar. Ticket West is het verhaal van twee broers die doen wat ze het liefst doen; nummers schrijven, opnemen en optreden met vrienden, zonder gebukt te gaan onder de last van roem en rijkdom.
Gewoon je best doen om iets moois te maken. Hun blues is weer levend.
“Free,” the title track from singer-songwriter Lauren Glick‘s 2021 EP, is a boisterous, celebratory take on becoming an empty nester and having a world of new paths open up at your feet. Over a driving, blues-rock beat punctuated by her driving bass work and an equally free-spirited guitar solo, Glick’s vocals soar with authority, propelling the song ever-forward.
“It’s about moving past raising children and becoming free in that aspect of her life,” she comments on the woman the song revolves around. “She’s finally having the chance to go on the road, down the path and play the music she loves.”
Shot entirely in her hometown of Ocean City, MD, she’s clearly more than at ease in the video and having a downright blast. “As much fun as I’m having in the video, and as much fun as the song conveys, there is a more serious subtext. It’s about women’s freedom in general, especially in the context of trying to make it in music.”
Examining the visceral emotional territory of a pandemic and the world’s reeling in its rolling aftermath, multi Platinum-selling and award-winning artist Sass Jordan readies herself to rock the blues once again with the announcement of her new album, Bitches Blues — available June 3rd, 2022 via Stony Plain Records.
Following rave reviews of her 2020 all-blues offering, Rebel Moon Blues, the Billboard Best Female Rock Vocalist winner mines even more of her expansive talent in the genre to deliver eight new tracks — including originals “Change Is Coming,” “Still The World Goes Round,” and
more.
A pioneer of powerful, gritty female-fronted rock, Sass Jordan has worked alongside fellow greats like Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, and Van Halen, among many more. Born in Britain and raised in Montreal, she launched her solo career with the single “Tell Somebody” from her 1988 debut of the same name, garnering national acclaim and a JUNO Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist. Throughout her career, she’s earned three more nominations for Best Female Vocalist thanks to albums like Racine (1992), Rats (1994), Present (1997), Hot Gossip (2000), Get What You Give (2006), From Dusk Til Dawn (2009) and her side project S.U.N.’;s album, Something Unto Nothing (2011) — along with singles like “Make You A Believer,” “You Don’t Have to Remind Me,” “Sun’s Gonna Rise” and 1992’s “Trust in Me”, a duet with Joe Cocker from the record-selling Bodyguard soundtrack.
Jordan starred in the off-Broadway Janis Joplin show, Love Janis, performed The Vagina Monologues in Winnipeg and Toronto, toured the world with A Bowie Celebration, guest-starred on NBC’s Sisters, weighed in as the only female judge on Canadian Idol for all six seasons
beginning in 2003, and branded her own lines of wine and spirits, Rebel Moon Whisky and Kick Ass Sass Wine.
In 2017, she released Racine Revisited, recreating her sophomore album with an all-star cast for its 25th anniversary, and celebrated the same milestone for Rats in 2020 with a coloured- vinyl reissue. With Bitches Blues, Sass returns to a genre that’s long been ingrained in her grasp since the start. “There’s been an undercurrent of blues throughout my whole career”, she shares. “The music that I have mostly been drawn to has always had that gritty, rootsy vein running through it, and that’s why I’m enjoying making these records so much”.
As such, anticipate piercingly fierce guitar licks and defiantly driving tempos alongside Sass’ soulful signature rasp and the full backing of a glorious assortment of rambling road dogs, the Champagne Hookers — guitarists Chris Caddell and Jimmy Reid, drummer Cass Pereira, keyboardist Jesse O’Brien, and Steve Marriner on bass and harmonica.
For all his considerable musical talents, Taj Mahal has always been shrewd. And smart. In the early 1990s he knew he’d assembled something special in his backing band. He dubbed his secret weapon the Phantom Blues Band.
After helping Taj win two Grammys and gain three other nominations, the band members realized they could stand on their own. The Phantom Blues Band began assembling what would become ‘Out Of The Shadows’ in 2006, an album that stretched the band and won raves at every turn.
The Phantom Blues Band – drummer Tony Braunagel, bassist/singer Larry Fulcher, guitarist/singer Johnny Lee Schell, saxophonists Joe Sublett, trumpeter Darrell Leonard, and keyboardist/singer Mike Finnigan – has been a resilient unit.
At various times, its members have backed just about every marquis band you can name, but they continued to support Taj when he needed them.
On its own, Phantom has recorded ‘Out Of The Shadows’ and Footprints in 2007 for Delta Groove and Inside Out in 2012 and Still Cookin’ in 2020, both for VizzTone. Album after album features the same musicians, although at one point Les Lovitt replaced Leonard on trumpet.
It’s a rather remarkable testimonial that these guys who are first-call sidemen for people such as Bonnie Raitt, Etta James, Joe Cocker, Robert Cray, Eric Burdon, and Bob Marley among others, always seem to come back to their nest with the Phantom Blues Band. Unusual allegiance and true camaraderie come to mind as character traits.
So it was especially painful during the pandemic shadow in 2020 when Mike Finnigan was diagnosed with cancer. Finnigan held his own place in the music industry. Through the years, he played on hundreds of records and thousands of shows with artists as varied as Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Crosby, Stills & Nash. He made it through the Still Cookin’ album, but succumbed to his illness in August 2021.
The Phantom Blues Band wasn’t going to let that knock them out. They recruited veteran Jim Pugh on keyboards (Etta James, Robert Cray, Chris Isaak) and immediately set about to produce an album in tribute to the fallen Finnigan.
Schell and Fulcher handle most of the vocals on the new album, which is scheduled for an early summer release on Pugh’s Little Village record label.
The band invited two of its long-time musical companions – Bonnie Raitt and Curtis Salgado – to pitch in on the effort.
As a tribute to the Finnigan, proceeds from the new CD will be donated to the Mike Finnigan School of Music at the Stiefel Theater in Salina, Kansas. It is surely an honor Finnigan, a native of Kansas, would smile at.
The members of the Phantom Blues Band can take plenty of pride from their aggregated musical experiences, but they know this project is something special.
Of course, Taj Mahal could have probably told you that they could do this long ago. He believed in them first.
12 Blues/Rock songs ranging from heartfelt emotional blues to a Latin-beat rock. 7 original songs written by Ron and played by his band the Tomcats along with special guest musicians. Physical CD available for pre-order as well, just go to the merchandise page.
Some Light is the latest Mungo Jerry album, and it is packed with a dozen life-affirming songs. It is a tour-de-force, triumphant celebration of life.
Overall, it is so good that it seems to contain much, much more than the dozen brilliantly crafted songs therein. You could even call it a concept album, if that’s not too cheesy a thing to say. It is arguably the best MJ album ever released.
Ray Dorset and Mungo Jerry are two sides of the same gold sovereign.
Music moves elementally through Ray Dorset, and it is hard to say who is in control on this album. The musician Ray Dorset? Or the Mungo Jerry Muse that has driven this irrepressible force of nature to produce his music for more than six decades.
This hypnotising album is a musical gem. Ray’s band grooves in harmonious sync, amid a framework of the highest production values.
Some Light was conceived, composed and recorded during the darkest days of the 2020/21 Pandemic and light itself is the energy that shines through this astonishing output.
Ray squared up to the modern plague by producing this truly classic Mungo Jerry collection. Some Light is his plea to humanity to stop destroying the planet and going against Nature, a cause he has been crusading since the late 1960s.
But have we left it too late? Some Light poses that question in a beautifully crafted way. The title tips a wink at the inclusion of uniquely ‘light’ Mungo Jerry songs. They defiantly and cheerfully proclaim the endurance of the human spirit in these strange times. ~Mick O’Hanlon
