Reckless and Blue – Seven Deadly Gins
Self-produced CD
10 songs – 43 minutes
Based out of Denver, Colo., Reckless and Blue are five-piece ensemble who exploded onto the music scene in 2017. But they’re a veteran organization with a background that exceeds 100 years on stage. An interesting group who represented the Colorado Blues Society in the recent International Blues Challenge, their merged talents intersect to produce a hard-to-define, but pleasantly riveting album.
The band’s led by Denver native George Williams, who handles guitar and vocals. A musical nomad, he’s been performing since the ’70s and returned home after years on the road in California, Arizona and Florida. He’s joined on the mic – occasionally trading leads in the same song — by Shaunda Fry, a professional entertainer in other fields who didn’t start singing until she turned 50. A classically-trained pianist, Allen Anderson spent his youth in a Chicano show band before appearing at CBGB in New York in a couple of punk groups, settling in New Jersey and playing with the Lena Luck Blues Band.
Drummer Steve Gaskin has been keeping the beat across multiple genres in the Mile High City since 1973. And blues aficionado bassist Tom Dillard, the youngster in the group, has been holding down the bottom professionally since 2020. Adding to the mix are horns from Jeff Miguel and Derek Banach and backing vocals from Annie Phillips and Ernie Martinez. Dutch Smith sits in on bass for one cut.
This all-original set was co-produced by Williams and Brian Hunter, who mixed and mastered the project at his Mousetrap Studios in Denver. And George and Shaunda share writing credits throughout.
A rollicking Delta-style cigar-box guitar run and percussive beat open “Come Back” as Fry bemoans the loss of a lover and urges him to return home. Her agony is palpable, and George’s slide drives home the message even more. The theme continues but the music lightens in the uptempo title track that follows. The only objects the man left behind are “Seven Deadly Gins,” and the singer confesses that she’s never before swigs as much as she is now. Anderson’s organ fills amplify her frustration.
The pace slows to a crawl and the vocalists team for “Trifflin’ Blues,” a torch song in which the man is the one who’s suffering as the woman heads for the door. Williams’ single-note runs mid-tune heighten his agony before Shaunda rebuts him for “messin’ around again.” The theme continues atop a honky-tonk rhythm “Don’t Expect Me,” and this time it’s George who threatens that he’s through.
The war seems to resolve itself in the gentle rocker, “Burnin’ Daylight,” but the feeling’s only temporary because the lovebirds are at each other’s throats in the slow burner “Can’t Give Me the Blues” that they’ve both had them for “a long, long time.” Peace breaks out from the downbeat of “Shimmy Shakin’ Blues,” which gives Anderson space to show off his boogie-woogie chops.
“If the Blues Was Whiskey” – not the Bumble Bee Slim classic – is up next. Percussive and unhurried, it’s an admission from Shaunda that if the title were true, she’d “stay drunk all the time.” Williams is on the hunt for a new lady in “Hey Pretty Baby” and Fry remains heartbroken as she brings the disc to a close with “Stormy Night in Denver.”
Sure, you’ll be reaching for “Seven Deadly Gins” listening to this one, but they’ll go down smooth. Strongly recommended.
