Tom Baptist – Here’s The News, It’s The Blues
Self-Release – 2017
11 tracks; 49 minutes
Tom Baptist is a Florida-based musician who wrote all the songs and plays all the instruments on this album. A look at his website shows that he has also produced albums in the areas of ‘Island Astrology’ and ‘Dream piano excursions’ but here he is concentrating on blues-related themes and tunes. Of course one problem with producing everything oneself is that the musician may not always be equally strong in all areas: Tom is essentially a keyboard player and the drums here might be artificial, certainly the guitar elements sound like they were produced on the keyboard. Tom sings in a semi-spoken, conversational style and the songs contain some semi-autobiographical lyrics. Most of the songs are limited by the sole performer issues but the following may interest Blues Blast readers:
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Track 6 “Funky Shoes”. A semi-spoken lyric about what seems to attract Tom’s interest, played over some fine piano and a funky bass line.
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Track 9 “Here’s The News, It’s The Blues”, fast-paced piano blues with lyrics about everything conspiring against you. Tom barrels along on the piano on the strongest track here, albeit wrongly labelled as 8 on the sleeve!
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Track 10 “Monday Morning Blues” is that feeling you get when you have to get back to work after the fun of the weekend. Tom reckons that “I guess the best thing today is what I brought for lunch”. The lyrics are interesting though the keyboard effect that may be intended as a horn section does not really work.
If nothing else, credit to Tom for adding his take on the blues to his other interests.