Cover photo © 2024 Laura Carbone

 In This Issue 

Ken Billett has our feature interview with Zac Harmon. We have six Blues reviews for you this week including new music from Rick Vito, Seth James, Stone Water, Freddy Miller, Leo Lyons Hundred Seventy Split and The Flaming Mudcats. Scroll down and check it out!

Rick Vito – Cadillac Man

Blue Heart Records

http://www.rickvito.com

12 Tracks – 46 minutes

Rick Vito gained recognition in the early 70’s playing his ripping style of slide guitar in recording sessions and on the road with many diverse artists including John Mayall, Albert Collins, Bonnie Raitt, Delbert McClinton, John Prine, Roy Orbison, Roger McGuinn, Jackson Browne, Dolly Parton, Todd Rundgren, and a huge list of many more artists. It is his guitar that was heard in the Chevrolet truck TV advertisements that used Bob Seger’s “Like A Rock” for over ten years as its theme.

But his fame grew when he joined Fleetwood Mac following Lindsey Buckingham’s departure from the group. Rick played with the group and wrote several of the songs recorded in the period between 1987 – 1991 and returned some of the blues sound that the group had in their early days with Peter Green. Rick left the group to start his solo career which began with the release of The King of Hearts in 1992. Rick rejoined Mick Fleetwood in 2010’s Mick Fleetwood Band featuring Rick Vito, which led to an artist and producer Grammy nomination for him in Best Traditional Blues for their collaboration Blue Again.

The release of Cadillac Man is Rick’s eleventh solo release. The title reflects Rick’s infatuation with the automobile. The cover is a photo of Rick’s 1969 Sedan De Ville, which he named Mr. Lucky, and is enshrined with that license plate tag. Rick sees the Cadillac as a symbol of success and something well-earned. Certainly, this album ‘s songs presents the delivery of top-notch guitar work and compositions clearly demonstrating Rick’s accomplishments. Rick plays the guitar on all songs, adds bass and percussion on most, and provides all vocals. Kevin McKendree plays the Hammond B3 on four songs and Jim Hake plays sax on four.

The album consists of eleven original songs and one cover. Rick’s slide guitar roars out of the gate on “Love Crazy Baby” as he establishes that “Round about midnight her crazy love comes pouring down”. “If she ever would leave me, she’d have me howlin’ at the moon.” Next up “It’s Two A.M” noting “Oh, do you know where your baby is?”, a song Rick composed for Shemekia Copeland in 2001 and won the W.C. Handy Award for Song of the Year. “Cadillac Man” is a blast of rock ‘n’ roll whereas previously noted he proclaims, “They call me Mr. Lucky, I’m a Cadillac Man”.

Steve Mariner joins on harmonica on “Little Sheba”, which gets a little swamp boogie going as he tells the tale of a woman who “walks like an angel with a devil within tryin’ to make you a present of a mortal sin” and “she don’t wear nothin’ but the red moonlight”. The instrumental “Bo in Paradise” offers a haunting interlude with a rhythmic drumbeat delivered by “Charles “Mojo” Johnson. Rick’s troubles with women are laid out in another rocking number, “Gone Like a Breeze”, losing one “When a guy in a Cadillac winked his eye” and another “when my money ran out”.

He slows things down with the moody “Crying at Midnight” as a “devil brought temptation I should never have seen. I was a fool, now I can never make it right. I lost my love forever”. Rick’s slide guitar rolls in on “Barbeque’n Baby” who he met in “old rocking Memphis town” as he notes “that Barbeque’n  Baby knew just how to serve a hungry man”. The sole cover on the album is an instrumental version of “Just Another Day” originally recorded by Sam Cooke and Soul Stirrers in 1965. Rick’s slide guitar is again a standout on the cut.

A desperate man hears the “River Calling” which tells him “The world don’t need you no more” and “I’m gonna carry you back home” as Rick’s slide cries in the finality. But he brings back the joy with “You Can’t Stop a Guitar (From Playing the Blues)” as he note’s “A little boy’s got a guitar toy. He wants to be like his daddy and make some noise. He’ll listen to BB, Elmore and Freddy. In just a few years he’ll be ready to keep rockin’ that guitar all night”. He closes the album with another slow instrumental “Sliding into Blues”.

Rick’s smooth and appealing vocals and his rousing guitar certainly establish the album’s theme of him being a Cadillac Man.

Reviewer John Sacksteder is a retired civil engineer in Louisville, Kentucky who has a lifelong love of music, particularly the blues. He is currently the Editor of the Kentuckiana Blues Society’s monthly newsletter.

Seth James – Lessons

Qualified Records

https://sethjamesmusic.com

12 songs – 38 minutes

What is it about Texas that produces so many great musicians? With no disrespect intended to any other state, the sheer number of top drawer musicians that hail from the Lone Star state dwarves those produced by anywhere else. From country stars such as Waylon Jennings, George Strait, Willie Nelson and Bob Wills, jazz musicians such as Herb Ellis, Ornette Coleman and Larry Coryell, pop stars like Beyoncé, Barry White and Usher, rock stars like Janis Joplin, Billy Gibbons, Eric Johnson and Roy Orbison to blues legends from Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Willie Johnson through Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb, T-Bone Walker, Johnny Guitar Watson and Pee Wee Crayton, to more modern masters like Albert Collins, Freddie King, the Vaughan brothers, Lou Ann Barton and Gatemouth Brown. And with superb younger musicians like Hugo Rodriguez and Randy Wall coming through, the Texan Magical Musical Dust shows no sign of running out.

The other great element of Texas music is the mashing of different musical genres to create something distinctly original, all-American and yet also entirely Texan. Think Doug Sahm. Think Lyle Lovett. Think Delbert McClinton, whose blend of blues, country, R&B, soul, rock and funk caused Rolling Stone magazine to dub him “the founding father of Americana.” Delbert retired from touring at the age of 80 in 2021 and released his latest studio album, Outdated Emotion, in 2022. His legacy however remains undiminished.

Texan troubadour Seth James has now released Lessons, an 11 track tribute to Delbert, recording a delightful mix of some of McClinton’s better-known songs with one or two lesser-known gems.  For this project, James linked up with keyboardist, guitarist, producer and engineer Kevin McKendree, who worked with Delbert for over 25 years, together with other McClinton band alumni, drummer Lynn Williams and bassist Steve Mackey. He also brought on board Rob McNelley on guitar, Vinnie Ciesielski, John Hinchey and Jim Hoke on horns and backing vocalists Nick Jay and Alice Spencer.  Together, they perfectly capture the greasy, funky, deeply emotional feel of McClinton’s best bands.

After a poetic solo voice reading of “The Glamour Of Life” which acts as a ready reminder of McClinton’s stunning appreciation of language, the album kicks into “Honky Tonkin’ (I Guess I Done Me Some)” from Delbert’s 1975 album, Victim Of Life’s Circumstances, with McKendree’s engineering skills producing a significantly more beefed up sound than the original. James’s voice fits McClinton’s music perfectly and the band nail the required sound on every track. James’s ability to utterly inhabit the deprecating self-awareness of the protagonist in “Lesson In The Pain Of Love” is one of many highlights on Lessons. Most of the songs are played quite close to the original arrangements, but that does not diminish them. Rather, it helps to remind us of just what a brilliant songwriter McClinton is.

So there are some 24 karat classics on Lessons, such as “Maybe Someday Baby”, “B Movie Boxcar Blues”, “Victim Of Life’s Circumstances” and “Morgan City Fool”, which may be known even to a casual McClinton listener. There are also however a number of tracks that only a diehard Delbert fan will know, such as the piano-driven “Ruby Louise” or the shuffle of “Real Good Itch”, both from his 1975 debut album.

Delbert McClinton is an American treasure and Lessons is a superb explanation of why.  Buy this album and be reminded of a genius of a very singular songwriter.

Reviewer Rhys “Lightnin'” Williams plays guitar in a blues band based in Cambridge, England. He also has a day gig as a lawyer.

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Stone Water – Make Me Try

Time Zone Records

www.stonewaterband.com

11 Tracks – 49 minutes

Stone Water hails from Hamburg, Germany. The band members are Bob Beeman on harmonica and vocals, Robert Wendt on guitar, Artjom Feldtser on bass, and Hanser Schuler on drums. Their story opens with the standard story of the pandemic. Bands were shut down – no touring. The frustration from the canceled tour for his band moved into inspiration for Robert and gave him the time to write a number of new songs. This motivation then brought Robert to reach out to the other three musicians, all of whom knew each other while performing on tour with other bands. This is the debut album for the group, which has been nominated for the German Record Critics Award for Blues. The other nominees include Joe Bonamassa, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. On tour now, they have also added American guitarist Ben Forrester to make a quintet. Julian Bergerhoff guests on piano and organ.

Their music is blues rock which they reference to the styles of The Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, The Black Crowes, Little Feat, and early Lynyrd Skynyrd. The album rocks out with an obvious tip of the hat to the Stones on “Stony Rock” and perhaps a touch of Southern rock guitar with Bob’s raspy, but soulful, vocals. The music moves more solidly into a Southern rock sound as Bob addresses the “Change” as he is “sad and blue…you are gone for good”.  “Scarecrow” features some nice slide guitar and an undertone of Bob’s harmonica moving into solid blues mode with a reference to “when the angel of death comes calling taking away a part of your life…open my eyes to see the saddest skies”.

“Make Me Try” starts in a slow groove as Bob sings to “please make me try one more time” as he tries to save a relationship. Midway through the song it shifts gears into an all-out rock beat and into a full-blown shout by Bob. Robert’s slide rips out again as Bob says he has got the “Awful Blues” “down deep inside”.  Bob’s harmonica sets the tone for a sweet and bouncy “Fare Thee Well” as he begs her “to just tell me what is wrong, and I will make it right” and if not “I will just move along”.

“Second Floor” gets the funk going with a bit of a Little Feat groove mixed in.  “Backdoor Man” is not to be confused with Willie Dixon’s song of the same name. This is an original song where he is hanging at her back door “waiting all night to lay your burden down, ain’t that right”.

“Sweet Charms” clearly has some of the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden” sound as it begins but moves into a slightly quieter sound.  But this sets up a move into the sole cover on the album, The Rolling Stones’ “Sway” from their Sticky Fingers album. The band delivers a solid version of the song. The album concludes with an acoustic ballad mixed with slide, “If You Get Lost” as Bob sings “Things aren’t the way they used to be. Friends are gone and passed away, now they won’t hurt me no more.”

The comparisons to the other bands that obviously have provided the inspiration for their sound is not to be negative. They have clearly learned from these bands, but they have combined that sound into something unique to the band. Bob provides solid vocals on every song and Robert’s guitar provides a distinctive sound while Artjom and Hanser provide a steady rhythm in well-written songs. They blend together into a band that certainly deserves recognition.

Reviewer John Sacksteder is a retired civil engineer in Louisville, Kentucky who has a lifelong love of music, particularly the blues. He is currently the Editor of the Kentuckiana Blues Society’s monthly newsletter.

Freddy Miller – Just Be Yourself

Self-release

www.freddymiller.fr

12 songs – 55 minutes

French vocalist, Freddy Miller, has an interesting background, having only stared singing professionally at the age of 35, after being heard messing around in a basement with some musical friends.  A decade or so later, he set up his own band and two years later, in 2017, he released his first album, My Blues. Just Be Yourself is his sophomore release and is a highly impressive collection of 12 self-written blues, soul and blues-rock songs, played by a crack band and superbly recorded by Nicolas Machet and Mickael Rangeard at La Boite a Meuh recording studios in Saint-Aubin-des-Coudrais, France.

Miller’s band comprises Christophe Bertin on drums, percussion and backing vocals (Bertin also wrote or co-wrote the vast majority of the songs on the album), Patrice Cuvelier on keyboards, Anthony Delanoony on bass, Philippe Perronnet on saxophones and Virgil Viard on guitars. They are joined on various tracks by the horn section of Perronnet on tenor sax, Nicholas Barbier on alto sax and Manuel Sudrie on trumpet and flugelhorn. Anaïs and Mathilde Maingot provide backing vocals.  Miller himself sings with a deep, raw, gravelly voice that is both compelling and emotionally persuasive.

Just Be Yourself opens with the riff-heavy blues-rock “Give Me A Sign” in which the Deep Purple-esque single note riff and washing organ are balanced by the groovy horn section and the structural dynamics of the song – everyone pulls back at the start of Viard’s solo before launching back in and picking up the pace again (and kudos to Viard for avoiding obvious blues-rock guitar cliches throughout the entire album).  The soul-blues of the title track follows, with more lovely keyboard work from Cuvelier.  Perronnet’s sax solo lights up the foot-tapping “One More Star”, while “Everything” relies almost entirely on Cuvelier’s piano and organ and the gospel style backing vocals of the Maingot sisters.

The upbeat dance soul of “Two Wrongs Don’t Make A Right” leads nicely into the slower “It All Comes Down To Love” with more punchy, powerful horns. The lovely ballad, “Never Gonna Be This Way” opens with a beautiful two-minute organ solo from Cuvelier, leading into a gorgeously melodic solo from Viard and lyrics that acknowledge the undying love a parent has for their child (with what sounds like the kids themselves contributing to the end of the track).  “I’m Not Coming Home” benefits from some raucous slide guitar from Viard.

The CD comes beautifully packaged, with a lyric booklet, making this a fine release. It is also fascinating to read what the lyrics actually are, because Miller has a fascinating habit of being sing lines that shouldn’t work, but do. In “Autumn Mist”, for example, he sings “All the colours have changed, the trees start to lose their brown leaves. It’s too cold and grass is almost completely covered. Oh I look away, but I can’t see the landscape clearly. I see only a shadow hidden by the autumn mist.” Which shouldn’t really work. But in Miller’s expert hands (larynx?), the words flow perfectly.

Just Be Yourself is a very enjoyable collection of blues, soul and rock. Highly recommended.

Reviewer Rhys “Lightnin'” Williams plays guitar in a blues band based in Cambridge, England. He also has a day gig as a lawyer.

During various points in our lives, many of us think about what kind of legacy we’ll leave behind and how we might someday be remembered. Blues musicians, particularly those with a long and colorful career, can point to the music they’ve created and recorded and the many gigs they’ve played as their lasting legacy. For bluesman Zac Harmon, who certainly has had a long and illustrious career as a musician, a songwriter, and a producer, however, his family, his roots, his music, and his enduring friendships are all key components to how he wants to be remembered both as a man and as a musician.

In mid-February, Harmon had just wrapped up his latest album, titled Floreada’s Boy. As Harmon put it, he was “just at the end of finishing my new record…and I’m pretty excited about that and that (recording the new album) has been my focus for the last four months.”

Floreada’s Boy—scheduled to be released in August—will include twelve new songs that Harmon called a “record of what’s really on my heart…it’s not pretentious at all (and) it has nothing in there that I wrote because I said, ‘Well, I need to satisfy this, or I need to do this for this person.’ It’s none of that.”

Obviously, the album’s title is personal and certainly close to Harmon’s heart. His online bio states that growing up he was exposed to a lot of music in his home, neighborhood, and local culture. His dad, a pharmacist, played harmonica and his mom played piano. “My mom (Floreada) was just so important in my life…(and) so important to my whole musical existence. She was the one (who) was always pushing for me and picking me up when I doubted myself.”

Floreada’s Boy will be released through Catfood Records, a Texas-based label that Harmon has been with since 2018 and where he released his last two albums: Mississippi BarBQ and 2021’s Long As I Got My Guitar. For this latest album, Harmon again teamed up with Catfood owner Bob Trenchard.

“The difference between this record and all the other records we’ve done with Catfood is that…Bob told me ‘Hey, man, I want you to do you. Just deliver me the record. That’s it.’ And I was like, yeah, cool, let’s do it. And that’s what I did.”

With Trenchard’s blessing, Harmon shelved the label’s boiler plate session standards, and, instead, collaborated with old friends whom he had never worked with before on a studio album. Friends, such as Caleb Quaye, an English rock guitarist and session musician, best known for his work with Elton John in the late 1960s and 1970s. “He (Quaye) is a friend and he came in and did some stuff with me that was just fun music(ally).”

The new album also features The Texas Horns, a three-piece blues and soul horn section, who have appeared live and on recordings with Marcia Ball, John Nemeth, Ronnie Earl, Carolyn Wonderland, Sue Foley, Curtis Salgado, and many others. Collaborating with The Horns grew out of a prior European tour, when the trio played with Harmon and his band. At some point, he realized, “Man, we ought to record together.”

“This was a really fun record,” Harmon said of his time spent with old friends. He also reflected on how he grew to know many of these musicians. “I spent a lot of years out in California…a lot of my adult years, so I had a lot of musical relationships with ‘A’ level session players. So, a lot of those guys are playing on this record (Floreada’s Boy).”

Harmon paused and then added, “And you know I can’t afford ’em.” He laughed.

Nonetheless, those friends traveled to Texas to help Harmon make the album—a testament to Harmon’s close relationships with his fellow musicians. As Harmon put it, there was no question (from his friends) about helping out on his latest project.

“’Zac, what do you need, man? What do you want?’ (We) just hung out and played…and it was wonderful.”

Many of those close relationships were forged way back in the early eighties, when Harmon, who was just 21 at the time, moved to Los Angeles to try his luck in the music business. According to his online bio, he worked as a studio musician at first and, eventually, established a successful career as a songwriter and producer. Harmon worked on major films, television shows, and well-known national commercials. At one point, Harmon was hired by Michael Jackson as a staff writer for his publishing company, ATV Music. Harmon also wrote songs for Karyn White, Evelyn “Champagne” King, Freddie Jackson, the Whispers, and the O’Jays. He also wrote and produced songs for reggae band Black Uhuru’s Mystical Truth album, which received a Grammy nomination in 1994.

“Before COVID, I used to go out there (California) and play, at least once a year. I have some endearing friendships…with family members, close personal friends from the music industry…and close personal church relationships.”

California was where Harmon’s blues career started, but launching that career involved a combination of factors that came together over time: satisfying a longing for his musical roots, the changing landscape of popular music, and encouragement from a different mama.

After more than twenty years as a successful session musician, songwriter, and producer, Harmon, who was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi, continued to feel the tug of playing Mississippi blues. “(Originally) I went to L.A. to be the next Albert King, but those record companies out there were like ‘This is too small for us…that’s a boutique business and we don’t (do that).’”

During those years of playing and making music for others, Harmon’s connection to the blues, or “lifeline,” as he called it, was a historic L.A. club called Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn, where, after spending a day in the studio, Harmon would sit in with local blues musicians and, at times, visiting blue luminaries. “Everybody from Lowell Fulson to Keb’ Mo’ was hanging out there, jamming. So that was my real connection to the blues (while) in L.A.”

Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn, which closed its doors in 2009 after more than 40 years, was not only a Los Angeles institution, but well known both nationally and internationally. A documentary film (Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn) was released in 2013, featuring Harmon in several scenes.

Harmon recalled those early days of hanging out at Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn when he first encountered the owner and matriarch, Laura Mae Gross, better known as Mama Laura to the musicians and her club’s patrons.

Harmon told Mama Laura (who hailed from Vicksburg, Mississippi) that, being from Jackson, of course he played the blues. Sometime later, Mama Laura asked him, “Well, if you play, why don’t you get up on the stage?” Harmon didn’t have his guitar with him at that time, which was no excuse to Mama Laura, who pointed to a Gibson 335 hanging on the club’s wall. “Uh, there’s the guitar,” Mama Laura said. “Get my guitar down and go on up there and play.”

Which Harmon did and continued to do for several years. For Harmon, Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn was like a family and “you never knew who you were going to run into. Those guys who were touring at the time…Smokey Wilson, Guitar Shorty, King Ernest (Baker), Barbara Morrison…you’d see all those guys there…it was just a family, man.”

For Harmon, playing at Babe’s and Ricky’s was a way to get “recharged” after a long day of creating music for others.

Harmon’s recording colleagues, however, didn’t get it. “The guys used to ask me all the time, ‘Man, why are you rushing to leave…why you gotta leave?’” When Harmon responded that he had to go down to Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn, his session-mates said, “You’re just sitting in” and “You’re not even getting paid.” His response was always the same, “Yeah, you’re right, I am going to play for free because that is my heart. You got to pay me for what I’m doing here, but that’s my heart down there.”

While jamming at Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn helped Harmon satisfy some of that Mississippi Blues longing, he still wanted to record blues and be known as a blues artist. By the mid to late 90s, changing musical tastes, along with a different music industry focus, spurred Harmon to make a definitive career change. He realized at the time that “this (the new industry focus) is not for me and I need to figure out something else.”

In a way, Harmon had reached his own personal crossroads. It was now time to focus on Zac Harmon. So, he started looking back over his career and realized there was no Zac Harmon, Blues Artist. “Wait a minute, I came out here to be a blues artist. I came out here to be the next Albert King. I’d done all of this stuff, but I had not done what I came to do. I had not recorded a record (of) myself. There was nothing out there that you could get that said ‘Zac Harmon.’”

He decided his first album would be a live recording at Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn, which Harmon hoped would satisfy that Mississippi Blues longing. The result was Live at Babe’s and Ricky’s Inn, which was released in 2003. Harmon was not concerned with the album’s success or whether or not anyone liked it. He simply wanted to make a “Zac Harmon” record and say that he did it.

Essentially, his career as a blues musician started with that album and his legacy as a talented artist continues to this day.

In 2004, Zac with and his then band, the Mid South Blues Revue, won the Blues Foundation’s prestigious International Blues Challenge (IBC) in Memphis, TN. Accolades and recognition soon followed, along with European tours and several more albums. Harmon, however, remains both humble and philosophical about his career.

“I’m like the Energizer Bunny…as long as I can breathe, I’m going to keep doing this music (blues), because it’s basically who I am.”

Harmon, who now makes his home in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, is also a bit philosophical about continuing to play and perform live. “I have played the big stages with fifteen to twenty thousand people and I have played little tiny mom and pop clubs with maybe twenty people in the audience…I’m just happy for anybody (who’s) going to sit in front of me and listen to me.” Then Harmon laughed. “That’s really what it boils down to…there’s nothing pretentious about this, man.” He paused and added, “from the outside looking in, it seems like, ‘Wow, you get to go here, you get to go there’ but it’s not really what you think. We always say amongst the musicians (that) ‘We don’t get paid for playing. We get paid for carrying equipment around.’ The show is free.” Harmon laughs, again.

“Nobody plays the blues to get rich. Playing blues music is truly a labor of love. You truly have to love what you’re doing.”

Playing from the heart and contributing to his legacy by fulfilling that desire to be a true Mississippi bluesman, Floreada’s son puts it all into perspective by stating, “just being able to play is what I like. You know, I’m sixty-seven now, and I’m at a stage in my life and my career…it’s kind of like time for whatever’s going to be my legacy to be my legacy.”

Friendships and close relationships are also important to Harmon and a key reason he wanted this latest album to include his friends. “I’ve lost so many friends and colleagues and so forth over the last two years. You know, I’m looking at my own mortality…and I might not get a chance to make another record. God might call me home, you know.”

For Harmon, contemplating his own mortality—and his legacy—means that it’s past the time “for doing stuff because I want to satisfy somebody, it’s kind of time to do what’s really on my heart. And that’s what I did (with Floreada’s Boy).”

Zac Harmon, Blues Artist…loving son, creative force, and devoted friend.

That’s quite a legacy.

Visit Zac’s website at https://zacharmon.com/

Writer Ken Billett is a freelance writer based in Memphis. He is a Blues Foundation member and former docent/tour guide at the Blues Hall of Fame. Originally from Tampa, Florida, Ken writes about travel, music, and the Mississippi Delta.

Leo Lyons Hundred Seventy Split – Movin’ On

Flatiron Recordings

www.leolyons.org

10 songs – 52 minutes

A professional musician since age 16 when he started touring Germany with guitarist/vocalist Alvin Lee in The Jaybirds – the band that eventually rebranded itself as Ten Years After, bassist Leo Lyons truly is one of the founding fathers of blues rock. And the 80-year-old native of Mansfield, England, still lays down a pleasing, heavy beat as the leader of Hundred Seventy Split, a group that works in old-school power-trio format with fresh ideas.

In addition to his skill on the bottom, Leo went on to become one of the top producers in the U.K., recording hits for others along with a multitude of other projects, including musical theater and TV, movie and cartoon soundtracks and work as a songwriter for a Hayes Street Music in Nashville.

He’s also released nine solo albums, two with the band Kick and seven others with Hundred Seventy Split prior to this one, too, a band that includes vocalist Joe Gooch, who replaced Lee in Ten Years After in 2003, and a guitarist who’s been a cog at Leo’s side ever since.

They co-founded this group as a TYA side project in 2010, released the debut CD, The World Won’t Stop, shortly thereafter and left TYA to go on their own three years later. The sensational Damon Sawyer, a longtime friend, has been kicking out a heavy beat on the drums since the group’s send disc, HHS.

Conceived during COVID, penned by Lyons, Gooch and longtime songwriting partner Fred Keller, this disc was recorded live with minimal overdubs with Sawyer at the controls at Crescent Studio in Swinton, England. From the intro to “Walking in the Devil’s Shoes,” the tribute in Robert Johnson that opens, you know you’re in for an old-style blues-rock treat fueled by Gooch’s fluid, rapid-fire licks. An autobiographical number, Gooch invokes images of going to the crossroads before embarking on a musical career that would take him around the globe for fame and fortune but unable to escape his past.

The rapid-fire “It’s So Easy to Slide” is light-and-breezy and cautionary number that warns it’s easy to slip when you’re close to the edge. So be careful before it’s too late. The action slows temporarily for “The Heart of a Hurricane,” an image-filled reverie about a lady that’s delivered from a borderline motel, modulating in intensity as it flows, before the sweeping “Black River” comes with plenty of TYA appeal as it states that you shouldn’t be afraid when standing in the darkness and wondering about what will happen tomorrow.

The uptempo “Mad, Bad and Dangerous” changed the mood from the jump, dealing with struggles in life, but making it crystal clear that the singer’s going to be in charge no matter what comes his way. Quiet but intense, “The Road Back Home” finds the singer reflecting on the dark period of life before a dramatic musical transformation, “Meet Me at the Bottom,” an acoustic number with a rock-steady swing beat. The powerful “Sounded Like a Train” and “Beneath That Muddy Water,” a Southern rocker with gospel overtones, follow before the rocker “Time to Kill” brings the action to a close.

All meat, no filling, this one’s definitely for you. And it’ll serve as a good, audible lesson to would-be “blues” rockers of the way it should be done, too!

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Marty Gunther has lived a blessed life. Now based out of Mason, Ohio, his first experience with live music came at the feet of the first generation of blues legends at the Newport Folk Festivals in the 1960s. A former member of the Chicago blues community, he’s a professional journalist and blues harmonica player who co-founded the Nucklebusters, one of the hardest working bands in South Florida.

The Flaming Mudcats – ‘Til The Money’s All Gone

Mudcat Music

www.theflamingmudcats.com

11 tracks

The Flaming Mudcats almost literally arrived on my doorstep in 2013. Here in the States on tour from their native New Zealand, the boys convinced me (before they left home) to add them to our new festival at the Rockford Aviator’s Baseball Stadium. How they convinced me was by sending me a superb CD to listen to. I was floored and we changed the plan; we opened the day early and added them to the bill. Things went so well that we also invited them to play our festival at Lyran Park in rockford a few years later. These guy are the real deal.

Craig Bracken is on vocals, backing vocals, harmonica, and tenor sax. Doug Bygrave plays guitars and sings backing vocals. On keys is Liam Ryan (piano, Hammond organ, keyboards and backing vocals}. Pete Parnham plaus electric bass and upright bass and also in on backing vocals Drummer Ian Thomson also provides backing vocals

“‘Til The Money’s All Gone” is a swinging and bouncy number about a guy willing to spend it all  on his woman until it’s all gone. Loyal and loving devotion emptying his bank account. A slick sax and then piano solo are fun  and add to the jazzy feel, and then a nice, rining guitar solo sweetens the pot. Next is “Get On Down” where there is a cool groove laid down on organ with support of the backline. There’s some funky stuff going on here as the organ is featured front and center. The guitar also adds to the mix in a slick little number. “Gimme Half a Chance” follows, a song of asking for his girl to cut him a break as the tile says. Up next is “Good News,” another swinging track with a very tasteful guitar solo and later piano and then harp solo.

“Waiting For The River To Fall” brings back the funk in a solemn cut with solid guitar and smooth vocals. A sweet harp solo adds to the ambience as the song tells us they have to wait for the flood waters to recede. “I Shoulda Told You That” has a Bo Diddley thing going on nd the overall sound kinda reminds me of Johnny Otis. Featuring another nice piano solo and some cool organ and guitar work, it’s a fun number. “Long Haul” opens with a big, rocking guitar intro as the vocals tell us of long term relational commitment. The organ lays out some more fine R&B and some later guitar soloing also helps set the tone.

Rocking jump blues are the order of the day with “Writing’s On The Wall.” The guitar eings, the organ howls, the harp growls in a very fine tune. More swinging stuff is dealt up in “Things Ain’t What They Seem” as the harp and piano get to give us a great boogie to savor. The temp gets turned down for “Satan’s Grip,” a somber rhumba with gritty harp and vocals. The chromatic gives us something to delight in as the band does a super job on this darker piece. The album concludes with “Smoke And Mirrors” and continues in the swinging fun. This is a slow to mid tempo piece where the woman in the song is not dealing her cards straight up. The piano work is well done and the guitar is equally up to the task as the song just flows ever so sweetly along. The chromatic harp takes us home as the song winds the album down. Well done!

Brackens’ vocals are tight. The band demonstrates great musicianship throughout. These guys can play, which is not news. Their fifth album adds to their fine track record. Eleven new tunes mixing the sounds of West Coast, Chicago, Texas and America’s South give the listener a fun ride to experience. Available only on Spotify, this is a great album for their fans new and old to enjoy. The boys from Auckland, NZ, have delivered another winner!

Blues Blast Magazine Senior writer Steve Jones is president of the Crossroads Blues Society and is a long standing blues lover. He is a retired Navy commander who served his entire career in nuclear submarines. In addition to working in his civilian career since 1996, he writes for and publishes the bi-monthly newsletter for Crossroads, chairs their music festival and works with their Blues In The Schools program. He resides in Byron, IL.