CD Review - Irma Thomas

Simply Grand
Rounder

M.D. Spenser

New Orleans soul singer Irma Thomas was renown in the ’60s for her infectious good humour, not to mention as the woman from whom the Rolling Stones swiped ‘Time Is On My Side’. Now 67, she offers this sweet and mellow album tinged lightly with the regret age brings.

The concept: pair Thomas with some of the best piano players around, including Henry Butler, Norah Jones and Randy Newman.

Her voice sounds wonderful – deep and rich – and she sings within herself: She never did cut loose like Aretha anyway.

The songs range from a new John Fogerty tune all the way back to ‘If I Had Any Sense I’d Go Back Home’, from the Louis Jordan catalogue. Dr. John’s piano on that number is among the CD’s highlights.

The album is graced by hard-earned wisdom lightly worn. ‘Too Much Thinking On My Mind’ is a catchy soul-flavoured number about having too much on her mind to worry about the little things – like bills and the rent.

‘Same Old Blues,” with Marcia Ball, is the Blusiest piece – slow, melancholy, nicely done. A few jazz numbers leaven the mix.

Despite the different players, the album is all of a piece: Thomas’ voice is well to the fore, backed by fine piano sometimes punctuated by upright base and tasteful drumming. On occasion, a fine backing chorus fills out the sound.

These songs don’t grab you by the lapels, but they sure grow on you. This album is subtle, stately, poised – and quite lovely.

Little Toby Walker -- The Anvil, Basingstoke, 14/09/08

By M.D. Spenser

The fine American Blues guitarist Little Toby Walker brought his entire band to the show in Basingstoke and, as musicians do, he introduced the members to the audience.

There was his thumb, the bass player; his middle two fingers, the rhythm section; and his index finger on lead guitar. And an excellent band it was – one of the best one-hand bands you’ll ever see. Walker’s picking is quick, rhythmic, Bluesy and most of all great fun.

He is more than anything a highly skilled entertainer. He leavens his show with hilarious anecdotes and knows how to involve an audience: a crowd that started out quiet and wary soon found itself singing lustily. “Oh, I just turned you into Blues singers!” Walker exclaimed.

And his repertoire, a mix of classics and sparkling originals, is heavy on amusing sexual innuendo. ‘Big Meat Shakin’ On The Bone’ celebrates the joys of larger women. And ‘Your Buggy Don’t Ride Like Mine’, a traditional number, doesn’t have much to do with going down the road: “Don’t get mad/Your buggy don’t ride like mine/I got an easy ridin’ buggy/It makes me go baby all the time”. Suffice it to say that the singer rides his buggy at every opportunity.

His instrumentals are every bit as entertaining: Walker mixes a walking bass, sassy fingerpicking and a delightful slide to great effect.

He covers artists from Fats Waller to Hank Williams, from Muddy Waters to Rev. Gary Davis, but makes each song his own.

At times, Walker’s voice can seem a bit one-dimensional, though his singing is always exuberant. But his finale, a highly personalised version of Blind Willie Johnson’s ‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’, was movingly sung – bone-chilling in its acceptance of life’s choices and their consequences.

Walker is a master showman; by the end of the night, the audience was not just watching the show but had become part of it. And that suited Walker just fine.

“Music”, he explained, “is far too important to be left in the hands of professionals”. An evening with him shows you just how right he is.

CD Review - Missippi Marvel

The World Must Never Know
Broke & Hungry

By M.D. Spenser

This is a half-decent CD buried under the weight of an insulting publicity campaign.

The album features an elderly Bluesman singing in the Delta style, accompanied mainly by just his electric guitar in the manner of Lightnin’ Hopkins. Some tracks include drums; on the best, the Marvel is accompanied also by a second guitar and harmonica.

Besides traditional tunes, the Marvel covers a song by Muddy Waters, after whom he patterns himself vocally; one by Little Walter, a Muddy sideman; and one by Hopkins himself.

The Marvel’s vocals are powerful if a tad grandfatherly. His playing is pleasingly rhythmic, although he hits, as the producer happily observes in the liner notes, “the occasional bum note.”

One can debate what constitutes raw versus polished, but it’s condescending to Blues performers to say that authentic equals bum notes. As John Hammond Jr. told Guitar World when Muddy Waters died: “Muddy was a master of just the right notes."

Speaking of condescending, the publicity campaign claims the Marvel is a 78-year-old who’s never reconciled his Blues with his religion. Fearing rejection by his church friends, he agreed to record this debut only if his identity was never revealed. The label has arranged at least one live performance in which the Marvel played concealed by a makeshift tent.

Sure, I believe that. And Paul is dead.

If you’re hankering for authentic – and skilful – Delta Blues, better to fill your shelves with Hooker, Hopkins and Muddy. The bottom line is that this CD is so-so.

CD Review - Ruthie Foster

The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster
Blue Corn Music

By M.D. Spenser

Well, finally. Ruthie Foster has at last made a full-throated R&B record worthy of her prodigious talent.

Mining a mostly acoustic folk and country Blues vein, the Texas singer and guitarist had recorded worthy albums, notably 2002’s “Runaway Soul.”

But for years people have compared her to Aretha, so it shouldn’t have taken a genius to figure out she ought to be singing more soul, with maybe some gospel thrown in. But it did—producer Malcolm “Papa Mali” Welbourne, who told Foster he heard more in her than was coming across.

This is in some ways a break-up record: Foster recently ended a 10-year relationship. But it is an affirmation, too—of faith, the ability to feel, the solace of friendship and the miracle of being a woman.

The songs range from the wistful ‘Cuz I’m Here’ (“and you’re there/all alone”) to the high-octane soul of ‘Heal Yourself,’ one of five originals. Along the way, she covers Son House, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Lucinda Williams and Eric Bibb.

The songs grow on you, burrowing inside, refusing to be dislodged.

‘Phenomenal Woman’, with words by the author and poet Maya Angelou, is as lush an ode to the richness of womanhood as can be found. “Pretty women wonder/Where my secret lies”, the song asks, then answers: “It's in the reach of my arms/The span of my hips/The stride to my steps/The curl of my lips.”

It may have taken Foster a while to find her true voice. But thank goodness it’s happened.

OPINION: Never Buy From BestChoiceFurniture

By M.D. Spenser

The benefits of internet shopping are obvious. No need to drive from store to store searching for what you want. With a click, you can buy from a reputable company like Amazon, and within a day or two your stuff arrives at the door.

But there are risks.

What if the company boasts a professional website offering a range of goods at what seem to be reasonable prices – but won’t stand behind what it sells?

What if the company is, for example, BestChoiceFurniture.co.uk? And let’s say the product turns out to be defective. You’re likely to be SOL – stone outta luck.

Had you bought from a store with a physical location and regular opening hours, you could go there, demand to see the manager, and probably reach some accommodation. Your merchandise would be replaced or your money refunded.

Take my experience as a cautionary tale. I ordered a bunk bed from BestChoiceFurniture for about £100. The bed arrived in short order. Good news. Unfortunately, when my wife and I assembled it, we found that one part – necessary for stability – was defective.

I called BestChoiceFurniture. When I finally got through, I was told no problem. I could choose between having an entirely new bed delivered or just having the defective part replaced. The bed was 99 percent assembled, so I opted for just the part.

Over the next couple of months, I kept a log of the scores of calls I made to the BestChoice, and the false things BestChoiceFurniture told me in reply. I will spare you the details because that would run to thousands of words. A small sample will do.

I dealt with an ineffectual person named Lisa. The manager refused over the course of several weeks to get on the phone with me – and in the end never spoke to me at all. But Lisa, on behalf of the company, gave me certain delivery dates: I would receive the replacement part next Tuesday. Didn’t arrive? Oh sorry, it will come next week, either Wednesday or Thursday. Not yet? Good News. The part was put in the post today.

All false.

When I became more annoyed, Lisa told me it wasn’t BestChoice’s problem, but one for “the supplier” to fix. I pointed out that I had no deal with “the supplier”. I gave my £100 to BestChoiceFurniture. My arrangement was with them. They took my money; it was their responsibility to provide me with what I paid for – a product I could use.

To no avail. The problem was the supplier’s – and, what’s more, Lisa informed me she did not feel able to “harass” the supplier.

In the end, despite scores of phone calls, I was SOL. BestChoiceFurniture took my money and simply did not care.

None of which means, of course, that you should never by anything from the Web. But it does mean you might want to check out the companies you do business with, searching the Web for testimonials or complaints. And – just my opinion – never do business with BestChoiceFurniture.co.uk

CD Review - JT Ross

Loaded
South Side Records

By M.D. Spenser

If you’re looking for an album of hard-driving guitar-and-harmonica Chicago Blues, this is not a bad one to pick up.

JT Ross was born in Chicago; his father, Michael Trossman, painted portraits of Blues and rock stars, including for Rolling Stone magazine. JT claims to have got his first harmonica as a baby, to have met Howlin’ Wolf and Hound Dog Taylor as a kid, and to have learned the harpist’s art from such luminaries as James Cotton and Junior Wells.

He blows a distorted, hands-cupped-around-the-mike style of harmonica, like Little Walter – with a bit of jazzy California flavour added, a la Rod Piazza or William Clarke.

No credits on the promo-tional CD, but it appears to be a mix of covers and originals. It’s an ordinary batch of songs, with pedestrian lyrics: “What is going on/In the world today?/Kids are shooting each other/People murdered day by day.” They’re generic 12-bar fare – the kind where someone could just shout, “Key of E!” and everyone would join right in.

Ross is an ordinary singer, too – certainly not the first Bluesman to play well but fall short of Caruso in the vocal department.

But none of that matters much, because he is a good harpist, and this is a good band. The lead guitarist is excellent, and some tracks are augmented by fine boogie-woogie piano. When they’re all wailing at full blast, makes you want to turn it up.

There’s not much original in this album. But it cooks.

CD Review - Tim Lothar

In It For The Ride
http://www.timlothar.com/

By M.D. Spenser

This engaging set of Delta stylings just might be the best acoustic Blues album you’ll buy this year.

Deftly mixing fingerpicking with slide, Lothar creates that rarest of gems: a Blues album that’s deeply traditional yet utterly fresh.

It’s done with such seeming ease that you wonder about the secrets of its charms, yet hesitate to deconstruct something so graceful. But start with this: Lothar is a former drummer, and his guitar playing exhibits a sense of the intricacies, allure and endless possibilities of rhythm.

His singing, mellow and evocative, is never over the top, always in service of the song.

Though he’s Danish, Lothar has deep knowledge of the Blues: He unearths old Delta gems and brightens them with his infectious tempos. But his cover of Robert Johnson’s ‘Stones In My Passway’ is slow and haunting, carried by understated guitar and affecting vocals – an achievement.

And Lothar’s own songwriting is so good you have to read the credits to discover whether a song’s an original or yet another from Sleepy John Estes or Charley Patton.

The best lyrics, Lothar knows, hint rather than bludgeon. “A traveller I am by heart/The wind will lead my way,” he writes. “Please don’t ask me when/But I’ll be home again.”

Another original, ‘Da Boogie’, is a jaunty instrumental ornamented with hammer-ons and trills.

Nothing on the album seems forced, contrived or imitative. Lothar really is in it for the ride. And we’re lucky to be able to come along.