Eddie Martin

Cool Cool blues seems to be the order of the day, and Eddie Martin’s “Ice Cream” album is right up there. Eddie possesses a warm emotive vocal style, and cutting edge slide guitar, as on the Jump blues piece instrumental, “Elmore’s Stomp”, and an ability to get low down and dirty as on the title track. Oh, and he’s a great harp player too!

Nicely produced, the overall feel is of a confident touring unit, who really lean into Eddie’s impressive material such as the funky grooves of “Keep It Natural” and the slow blues opus “Tough But Tender”. Great stuff, can’t wait for the live dates.

EddieMartin.com

Joe Louis Walker

What do you do when you’ve spent the last decade steadily ascending the ranks of the blues ladder, to fall that one rung short of being a brand name. In Joe Louis Walker’s case, he’s right up there, but ultimately still isn’t regarded in the same vein as say Buddy Guy.

Commercial distractions aside, Joe has continued to approach each album as a concept it seems, never falling into the trap of recording just another album.

Taking his slide guitar playing as the pivotal catalyst on this set, Joe splendidly fulfils his potential on his instrumental ode to Earl and John Hooker on “Hooker’s Blues”, and reappraises the early career heights of “City Of Angels” on the both the hard hitting “Poor Man’s Blues” and “Ghetto Life”. An just when your drawn into his blues, he hits you with Paul Butterfield’s “Born In Chicago”. A great album.

JSPrecords.com

The Blue Pearls

Swedish blues musicians suffer the same problem as their Norwegian jazz counterparts, namely that their excellent musical acumen is often overlooked because they hail from unfashionable Scandinavia.

This album sets a standard many blues band would love to emulate. Imagine an early Peter Green style guitar courtesy of band leader Bela Stephens, and a white boy soul vocal style in the mould of Paul Young, courtesy of Perry Marshall, over some cool keyboards and a tight-as-a-drum rhythm section.

Cool blues from a cool country where blues is still played with passion and verve. Check out the opening "Its All In Your Head” and the fierce wah wah of “Charmed Of the Moonlight” and you’ll get the idea.

TheBluePearls.com

Drive By Truckers

On which the musical sensibilities of Neil Young’s “Southern Man” adds social realism, and comes up with a batch of Southern drenched Roots rock full of the detailed ironies of small town life.

Where once the good old southern boys would sing whisky soaked laments of a past either real or imagined, The Drive By Truckers bring raw gut honesty, emotion and inevitably three guitars to inject a new take on 15 gems full of epic ballads and visceral rocking.

DriveByTruckers.com

Omar & The Howlers

Apparently since receiving this advance copy, the album release has been put back to coincide with a Spring Euro tour in 2004, which basically means we get longer to digest how unique a figure Omar is on the contemporary blues scene.

A brand new project for Omar as he teams up with some of the strongest siong writers and performers from his adopted home town of Austin. The result is a slightly more polished effort than of late, but an album that gloriously demonstrates both Omar’s unique vocal talent, and thoughtful lyricism

Stand out cuts are a trademark boogie titled “Bamboozled”, curiously enough co written with Country singer ray Wylie Hubbard, while fellow New Country star darden mith chips in with a co write on the big guitar sound of “White Crosses.

Stephen Bruton helps on the Bo Diddley beat of “Bad In A God Way”, and there’s also an effective co vocal/co song collaboration with Alejandro Escovedo on “Right There In The Rain”, but the killer punch is delivered on the closing 3 tracks. “That’s Just My Life” is a part autobiographical boogie, part John lee Hooker ode, on which Papa Malin delivers some great slide, while Mississippi Mud is more hometown Omar.

The closing climactic “All The Love We can Stand” is another co write with the unlikely figure of Ray Wylie Hubbard. It’s a three guitar attack including the mighty Chris Duarte, that suggests the Hubbard/Omar Dykes writing team is one to watch for the future

A great album by one of Texas’s most consistent boogie blues men.

OmarAndTheHowlers.com

Frank Zappa

It was a combination of the recent Muffin Men tour and the current Radio 3 series on Zappa’s role in Jazz, that brought me back to one of my favourite albums. Over two decades on, the synths date it a little, but the playing on the live tracks, the spontaneity , the onstage humour, and Zappa’s awesome guitar tone on “Yo Mama”- either side of his low register, close to the mike voice, is peerless.

The humour of the very Californian satire “Flakes and the DJ spoof “Bobby Brown” can be regarded as light weight humour, or indeed very clever musically annotated comments on stuff that still goes on. It’s a cliché to say Zappa was a one off, but as this double album shows, his musical scope and brilliant playing, and staggering band are unlikely ever to be emulated either on stage or in the studio.

RykoDisc.com

Roger Cotton & Alan Glen

I’ve always had time for Alan Glen from his days at a residency in Camden with The Barcodes. And despite a career that has included the likes of the Yardbirds, Nine Below Zero etc, he has always found time to plough his own musical furrow.

The jazzy barcode offered a clue, and now comes an album that I’ve been meaning to play for sometime. Result? An insistent, impressive mix of jazz tinged blues and funk, shuffles and tempered solos, and the occasional outing from vocalist Ron King.

“Maxwell Street Mood”, and the slow blues “I Don’t Want Your Love” are but two highlights of a mature band.

Note-Music.co.uk

Patricia Vonne

An interesting meeting of Texas Roots Rock with Latino sensibilities, the alluring Patricia Vonne hails from san Antonio, is based in Austin, and wears her Mexican ancestry on her sleeve.

As her press cutting notes, this album will appeal to say Los lobos and Steve Earle fans, but after repeated listenings her own “Voice” and style fighting to get out. With a forthcoming European tour, that inner voice will gown stronger and the recorded results will make compelling listening.

PatriciaVonne.com

So Long Angel

This album is what you call a slow burner. Available for a few years, but still promoted on the live circuit by the band – albeit they are now featuring new material from a forthcoming album – it’s a timely moment to come back this fairly unique outfit.

So Long Angel are best described as a musical melange of blues, undulating funk with a hint of jazz. Fronted by blues chanteuse Fran McGillivray and Michael Burke’s funky guitar lines, “Would It Matter” is the perfect introduction to a very classy but understated outfit.

With the wailing blues harp and pithy sax of Michael Paice, and subtle keyboard fills of Roland Kemp, and a batch of splendid self penned songs, So Long Angel are an undiscovered gem of a band in a well full of compelling songs.

SoLongAngel.com

Permission To Rock

Hey, its Christmas, you are of a certain age, and The Darkness have resurrected Rock from the dead. This double CD straddles contemporary Rock, metal, progressive rock and FM rock. There’s even a few forgotten classscis such as Curved Air’s “Back Street Love”, a welcome “Battleship Chains” from the Georgia Satellites, Family’s “Burlesque" and of course Purple’s “Black Night”. Curiously there’s no Quireboys for example, to link the Purple years with the last decade. Still 30 per cent great stuff in 36 tracks isn’t a bad ratio.