David Vest & Terry Robb – Crisscross
Cordoba Bay Records
12 tracks – 39 minutes
David Vest was born in Huntsville, Alabama and established a reputation for his keyboard playing in Birmingham where he first started playing professionally at age 15. In 1962, he opened a show featuring Roy Orbison. In the 1960’s, he backed Big Joe Turner and subsequently appeared with Bo Diddley, Carey Bell, and many others. He presently lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He has won six Maple Blues Awards, which are awards for Canadian based musicians, and five Muddy Awards, which are given to musicians located in the Northwest region of the US and Canada.
Terry Robb was born in Vancouver, Canada but has now lived in Portland, Oregon for many years. Terry’s prowess with the acoustic guitar has led to him winning the Muddy Blues Award for 19 consecutive years following the award’s establishment in 1992. In 2011, the award was officially renamed the “Terry Robb Acoustic Guitar Award”. In 2017 he received the Muddy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Terry ‘s 2020 solo album Confessin’ My Dues earned him a Blues Music Award nomination for Best Acoustic Blues Album. In his early career, he played with Canned Heat’s Henry Vestine, and then collaborated with and produced albums for John Fahey. Other collaborations followed with Eddy Clearwater, Maria Muldaur, Joe Cocker, Johhny Winter and others. He has released fifteen solo albums. He has been inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame and The Cascade Blues Association Hall of Fame.
Both men can claim over forty years’ experience in the blues genre. The describe their debut album together as being “In the tradition of Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, and Lonnie Johnson and Blind John Davis”. The album consists of twelve original songs with a mixture of vocals and instrumentals.
The album opens with “Nehalem Shuffle” and quickly establishes that David’s bouncing piano serves well opposite Terry’s rippling fingerpicking guitar in a kickoff instrumental. “Red Tide Turning” starts with an ominous piano before Terry’s guitar kicks in as he sings “There’s a big ship bucking in the waves…the way I feel this morning, someone must be walking on my grave”. “Electra Jane” gets things rocking with David’s piano taking the lead before Terry really lets his guitar rip out and then moves back to David’s jumping keys in another instrumental.
“Natural Facts” is a very easy going, smooth jazzy instrumental. “Good News” picks up the pace again with some Piedmont-styled fingerpicking with David’s piano blending in. “Mooresville” offers a very moody play between the two artists.
“All Hooked Up” is pure blues with David’s piano lead and Terry’s guitar chiming in. “Ex-Mas Time” is the second vocal performance on the album as David declares that “there will be no more sleigh bells ringing, I ain’t your Santa Claus no more” as “you’re out doing evil every chance you could”. Terry declares he has a “New Kinda Lovin'” never seen before. The good Lord gave me sunshine, all I needed and more”.
“Wait a Minute Waltz” starts slow and builds momentum as it progresses. “Long Gone Home” is 92 seconds of pure instrumental bliss. The album concludes with “Drive ’em On Down” with David singings “Take you down to the river one night, the moon shining bright…they’re already rocking when you walk in”.
The combination of the two instrumentalists delivers some top- notch performances, each giving the opportunity for the other to shine in every song.
