Ben Rice & The PDX Hustle – Fallen Angel
Self-release
10 songs – 48 minutes
Three-time Blues Music Award nominee, Ben Rice, impressively maintains the energetic enthusiasm of a child about to start his summer vacation on his latest release, Fallen Angel. While he began in traditional blues, over the years Rich has expanded his sound to incorporate soul, R&B, folk, and country, creating a glorious smorgasbord of American music, all underpinned and fueled by the blues.
Fallen Angel features 10 new songs, all written or co-written by Rice that range from the piano-powered ballad, “Even On A Good Day” which has a superb slide guitar solo, to the grinding soul-rock of “Good Lord Bad Lord”, the raucous rock of “Get Down” and the hard-to-define “Trust,” which builds beautifully, whilst managing to successfully combine high dynamics, a catchy chorus, a spoken word bridge, stabbing horns and a wild guitar solo.
Rice composes very clever songs. On a track like “Storm”, the simple rhythm guitar beautifully counterpoints the wash of McDougall’s organ, with the horns harmonizing the single note guitar lines. On “Good Lord Bad Lord”, the chorus chord progression creates an ear worm of a song, as well as the nagging conviction that surely somebody must have written something so catchy already? One of many highlights on Fallen Angel is “Crushing On The Bartender”, an entertaining roadhouse blues that could easily have been written by the great Delbert McClinton.
While Rice is obviously the star of the show, providing vocals, playing lead guitar and writing the songs, he is more than ably supported by the PDX Hustle, featuring Pat McDougall on piano, organ and vocals, Pete Petersen on saxophones, John Dover on trumpet and flugelhorn, Chandler Bowerman and Adam Carlson on drums, John Wolcott on bass and vocals (Jeff Lanston plays bass on “Retreat”), Lindsey Reynolds on backing vocals, Chuk Barber on percussion, Sara Barbee on cello and string bass, and Ryan Downs on violin.
The sound quality is top notch, with seven tracks recorded at The Jazz Dungeon in Portland, OR (engineered by Petersen) and three recorded at Falcon Studios in Portland OR (engineered by Dennis Carter, who also mixed all the songs, with mastering by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege).
It’s probably fair to say that there is more soul and rock on Fallen Angel than traditional blues, but Rice’s guitar playing is imbued with a true understanding of blues throughout. And a track like the closing “Lonesome” is as close as one could come to defining 21st century blues (with great piano from McDougall and resonator slide guitar solo from Rice).
If your musical tastes extend beyond the traditional boundaries of what a blues song is meant to sound like, you will find a huge amount to enjoy on Fallen Angel.
