Brad “Guitar” Wilson – Boundless
Cal Bee Music
16 songs – 76 minutes
It takes plenty of confidence to label yourself after your instrument, and Brad “Guitar” Wilson does it for a good reason. Since the dawn of the 2000s, the West Coast native has been thrilling audiences with a polished style on the six-string that’s all class no matter whether he’s driving home his message with precise, fluid runs or shredding in the best way possible. His most recent previous album, The Californian, spent 12 weeks atop Roots Music Report’s blues-rock chart. And this welcome follow-up is bound for greatness, too.
Wilson grew up listening to and absorbing the styles of B.B. King, Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Gary Moore, Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, and he’s synthesized their magic into a method that truly is all his own. He’s toured or shared stages with Buddy Guy and Tommy Castro along with rockers Chicago, .38 Special, the Marshall Tucker Band and Cheap Trick. He has a presence on both sides of the Atlantic, and his music fills the soundtracks of TV shows and movies.
Like The Californian, which celebrated his return home after touring France and the Netherlands, this set was produced by Grammy winner Francis Buckley – who won a Grammy from Quincy Jones’ Q — at Musician’s Institute Studios in Hollywood and ICP Studios in Brussels, Belgium.
A mix of 12 originals and four well-conceived covers, Brad’s backed by keyboard players Chris Rhyne, Luca Catalfamo and Frankie Vriens, percussionists Toto Pozanantek, Chris Ross and Adam Gust and bassists Hal Cragin, Brian Beal and Fabrizio Erba. Buckley sits in on synth bass and percussion, and Paulina Campos and Valerie Chanelle provide backing vocals.
An unhurried and sweet version of B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone” opens the action with bittersweet fretwork and Wilson’s plaintive tenor vocals. It slowly picks up pace before following into the original, “More of You,” which picks up the tempo into a medium-fast shuffle while continuing the depth of the singer’s broken heart. It’s a laundry list of all the things Brad misses in the relationship.
Percy Mayfield’s familiar “Hit the Road Jack” follows and seemingly brings the misery to an upbeat ending. But the problems continue in the speedy “Gonna Stay or Go” as Wilson finds the woman back again and debating whether or not to come back, and he’s demanding to know exactly what she’s going to do. The sweet rocker “Living Underground” finds him in the aftermath of her leaving before a tastefully reading of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” brings the chapter to welcome close.
The rapid-pace “Let’s Dance Together” proves beyond a doubt that Brad’s ready to move on with another lady, and “Wild and Free,” which follows, celebrates a new beginning in Central California – as does the companion ballad, “Home.” Wilson gets sentimental for the past in “Time Was.” But the funkified “San Francisco Nights” is up next to celebrate everything the The Golden Gate City has to offer before the driving “Sundown and the Cowboy” describes a cowpoke riding at a fast pace and thinking of a dark-haired lady who’s made him forget his past…at least temporarily
In the ballad “Sky Full of Rain,” Brad’s lost his job and describes his life feeling like a “knockdown tragedy” before the fiery “Between the Hours” finds him looking out a window from a hospital bed and wondering if his life’s at an end. Fortunately, though, he finds himself looking into the eyes of a new lover and feeling “Blues Magic” before a tender and azure cover of Julie London’s “Cry Me a River” brings the beefy set to a close.
Another winner on all counts.
