blues
Exclusive: John J Presley reveals On A Sunday (Reprise) for At Home Sessions
Blues-Psych troubadour John J Presley has just revealed his new Albany Sessions album, out last Friday, made up from tracks recorded at home over lockdown, with is trusty guitar, and pretty much nothing else. Recorded at home in Brighton, and recording, producing and mixing everything himself, the record is available on a beautiful translucent-red vinyl …
ALBUM REVIEW: Various Artists – ‘Sunrise On The Blues: Sun Records Curated By Record Store Day Vol. 7’
SAM PHILLIPS’ Sun Records imprint is arguably the first truly great label of the modern era. It was founded in Memphis in February 1952 by Sam, Alabama born, who lived through the great American depression and who cut his musical teeth at the Muscle Shoals radio station WLAY, which didn’t categorise its music by colour …
ALBUM REVIEW: Big Bill Broonzy – ‘The Midnight Special: Live In Nottingham 1957’: music of truth delivered with power
BIG BILL BROONZY – he’s one of those names you hear in hallowed tones, whispered and discussed on forums and in the music press, alongside such company as Robert Johnson, Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, as being right in there at the roots of modern black music; in the blues, the devil’s music, which of course …
TRACK: WILLIAM SHATNER FEAT. RITCHIE BLACKMORE AND CANDICE NIGHT ON COVER OF BB.KING’S ‘THE THRILL IS GONE’
Former Deep Purple axeman Ritchie Blackmore joins William Shatner for a heart-rending take on the blues classic from Mr. Shatner’s new album The Blues coming October 2 via Cleopatra Recordings. A livelier rendition of BB King’s classic thats has been treated with respect. Blackmore is just Blackmore and simply amazing like only he can be. …
TRACK: The Lost Highway Tapes – ‘Something To Say’: stripped-down funky blues with The Infadels
THE LOST Highway Tapes is the project of a serendipitous encounter for Fabyl Records’ Nick Faber, who was out on a crate-diggin’ exploration of the American South. He was in the south of Florida when he came across a weatherbeaten busker bringin’ the blues on a steel guitar, tapping straight into the main source. He …
Track: Robert Plant reveals the unreleased Charlie Patton Highway (Turn It Up – Part 1) from upcoming compilation
Out October 2nd on his own Es Paranza label is a new career-spanning 2cd retrospective of the career of the legendary Robert Plant, Digging Deep. It includes tracks from across his eleven solo albums, but also includes three unreleas3d numbers – ‘Nothing Takes the Place of You’, written by New Orleans musician Toussaint McCall and …
Premiere: The Son(s)’ icy, baptismal video for ‘Lord, I Am Grateful’
EDINBURGH’S The Son(s) are not a band to shy away from the raw side of living in their creative pursuits. The video for their latest song, which the band are premiering today with Backseat Mafia, is the absolutely soul-wide-open paean “Lord, I Am Grateful”, and which was filmed immersed in the icy, peaty currents of …
TRACK: William Shatner and Canned Heat decide: ‘Let’s Work Together’
AND now he’s back. From outer space. The rebellious re-interpreter of “Mr Tambourine Man” and “Lucy in the Sky in Diamonds” on his album, The Transformed Man, in 1968. Brilliant bewitcher and bemuser of lyricist Bernie Taupin at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards in his theatrical, declamatory, absolutely seminal take on “Rocket Man”. And …
Remembered : Leon Redbone
Leon Redbone was one of those characters that seemed to have stepped out of an E.L. Doctorow novel, or an Our Gang comedy. Playing Tin Pan Alley shuffles and ragtime ballads on the guitar and whistling like a drunken bum with just a swig of whiskey left in his flask. Except instead of appearing out …
Track: The Wave Pictures – Jim
They don’t know this of course (well, not till they read this) but I’m sort of very proud of The Wave Pictures. Before landing in Sheffield I lived in a little village outside Loughborough, Shepshed (no, you won’t have) and growing up there was very little in the way of cool music that came from …