Hannah Miller
Hannah Miller embarks on a musical journey in ‘O Black River’ and as the title track leads the way for the E.P., the songs create a dusty texture that lays over the collected work. Hannah’s voice is a perfect foil for the darkness of the music, wrapping around the songs with a soulful delivery, warming the tracks from within. On “Foolish Pride” her voice near breaks, the fragility of her reed thin delivery matching the carefully plucked acoustics that float around the arrangement and the vocal. As the guitar notes skip into “Elijah”, Hannah Miller’s voice rises in strength, rolling across a persistent rhythm and diving low for effect, navigating the switch in tempos effortlessly. ‘O Black River’ showcases Hannah Miller’s chameleon vocals, illuminating the darkness of the water with the glow of Americana.
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AmeriCamera
Landscape and soundscape collide in words and music on ‘High Minded’, volume one from
AmeriCamera. The album is a project that puts the music of Billy Cioffi with the words of T.R. Hummer, a thirty-five year scholastic citizen who has made a career as an essayist, poet and teacher. A chance meeting in 2009 hatched a thought bubble that took form and eased itself into a musical endeavor that beds poetry down on an Americana sound blanket. Casting existing poetry to fit with the music beds was not always an exact match with “Mississippi More or Less” taking four separate poems to create a whole song. The musical backing for the album comes courtesy of The Monte Carlos, whose ace playing has made them fixtures on the LA music scene for over thirty-five years, backing artists such as Chuck Berry, Ben E, King and Gene Vincent. ‘High Minded’ brings re-introduces poetry to music, the delivery of AmeriCamera make them part of one family.
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Mighty Mo Rodgers
Class is in session for Professor Mighty Mo Rodgers and the man knows his history. The school year will be brief and there are no exams scheduled. There is only one lesson available for consumption…..the reason that America rose to power had nothing to do with taxation, religion, railroad building or industry. Peeling back the layers of decades, Mighty Mo pares it down to one simple observation, “America’s rise can be traced to when they put the fishtail on the Cadillac” and one demand “Cadillac Jack Says Bring the Fishtail Back”. Happily, Mighty Mo Rodgers has more to share from experiences of a working musician who began his journey in mid-60;’s Indiana. His musical life took him to LA session work (that’s Mighty Mo’s organ in Brenton Wood’s “Gimme A Little Sign”) and production credits. A change in direction occurred when Mighty Mo Rodgers returned to school for a philosophy degree. He released his first solo album in 1999. On “Cadillac Jack”, Mighty Mo Rodgers drives the songs through blues schoolin’, making sure that rock’n’roll and soul gets their dues.
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Scott Cook
Scott Cook is a prairie balladeer and, as the name implies, he lives the life of traveling troubadour. Man
and van head out of Edmonton, Alberta to the world and luckily for Scott, the Trans-Canadian Highway is one of the world’s longest national highways, carving a line through all ten Canadian Provinces. Scott Cook gives his songs country, folk, blues, reggae and soul border stamps. His words are snapshots of what he has experienced, spread through ‘Moonlit Rambles’ like pictures captured in a photo album, each image playing out a scene. Working with a five piece, The Long Weekends or handling the chores of fingerpicked acoustic guitar, banjo, ukulele and foot percussion, Scott is on the unending tour. Like the scenery that passes by his windows, “A Millions Miles” drifts by on a shuffle, “Go On, Ray” ticks off the distance traveled with banjo notes, “Let Your Horses Run” skips in time to gentle finger pickings and “Song for Slow Dancers” sways to plucky guitar notes and an outside café accordion. ‘Moonlit Rambles’ is Scott Cook’s third release.
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Samantha Fish
While other kids were trying to find a sound to call their own, the younger Samantha Fish marinated in every note that passed her way. The music on her debut, “Runaway”, reflects her study of sound growing up in Kansas City, Missouri and her passion for the blues. The songs creep and flash throughout the album, throwing down with last night jazz (“Feeling Alright”), boogie (“When Push Comes to Shove”), swamp crawls (“Down in the Swamp”) and country shuffles (“Otherside of the Bottle”). The driving force for ‘Runaway” is a blues that seems to come naturally to Samantha. As she cites in the title track, “you can’t get away from the blues”, and the point is proved on the album. Samantha Fish has a blues bellow capable of raising the roof and yet can go down low enough to simply raise the hairs on your neck.
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Houston Jones
The music of Houston Jones takes a lot of paths. As a lonesome harmonica and blues riffs from a
single guitar source open ‘Queen of Yesterday’, street corner busking comes to mind. Add in the distorted electric chords and a steady groove and “Angels on the Ridgepole” veers, cutting a sharp turn into late night blues bars. The guys in Houston Jones have a grasp of music that allows the songs and styles to slip and slide throughout ‘Queen of Yesterday’ with country folk (“If Not For Darkness”), smokey blues (“Lost Without You Blues”), upright bass anchored jazz (“Calamity Jane”), western swing (“Lone Star Smile”), acoustically crafted ballads (“I Found A Heart”) and bongo dappled folk (“Three Things”). As Houston Jones steers through styles, the common factor is the human warmth that the band brings to accomplished playing.
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Head Honchos
Rocco Calipari, Sr. has held down the lead guitar chores for Howard & The Whiteboys since 1995. He gets help from his son, Rocco, Jr, for fret work and as band mate in The Head Honchos. The band’s self-titled release flashes fire across a Chicago blues landscape. The E.P. balances originals with a blues funk makeover of the Neville Brothers “Fire on the Bayou” and lathers gritty blue soul across the surface of Wilson Pickett’s “99 ½ Won’t Do”. The Head Honchos’ bring together two generations of bluesmen, blending experience with experiment.
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Starlite Devilles
The Starlite Devilles take aim and hit Alt Country dead on. The Athens, Georgia based band use album
opener ”Second Hand” to define their territory. Guitars walk the line between distortion and jangle like they were dancing on hot coals. The songs that check into ‘Hotel” stick to their lo-fi roots and need to have the music speak for itself with no frills added. “Nothing to Say” softly walks the carpet while “Someone Else” follows the pedal steel notes in reaching for a more ethereal texture.
DOWNLOAD STARLITE DEVILLES "FOOL'S GAME"
