Steve Gerard & The National Debonaires
Blues and Soul have always been tag team partners. Though the styles connect by default, they still stand as their own as catgories, a blues band or a soul band. In real life, there is a lot more play and blues and soul usually share the same touring van. Steve Gerard & The National Debonaires are a great example. Their third disc, ‘Voodoo Workin’’ give soul, blues, jazz and rock’n’roll a home base. To really get the feel for the daily life and meaning of blues roots, Steve Gerard set up recording camp in Jackson, Mississippi for recording 'Voodoo Workin''. The emersion produced one fine record and gave The National Debonaires the benefit of Jackson, Miss. homegrown talent in the form of vocalist, seventy-one year old James “Rock” Gray. ‘Voodoo Workin” is a blender where the varied taste of soul and blues meet for one heady brew. The men in The National Deboniares have a lot of love to dole out in ‘Voodoo Workin’’. “Michelle” balances a Big Joe Turner-style Kansas City arrangement as Steve Gerard faithfully delivers scales in a classic boogie roll as James “Rock” Gray opens the door to a bluesmans heart to let in love. “Sweet Little Woman” is a laid back country piano blues, raised up by the short hairs with late night horns.
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Steve Gates
‘Hello Jesus’ acts as a hello to Steve Gates. The four song E.P., his debut, can trace its birth
back to a public talk given by Daniel Lanois. Steve Gates was there and soaked up the methods Lanois used to create Emmylou Harris’ ‘Wrecking Ball’, taking on the speaker’s challenge to be reckless. For Steve Gates, that meant recording in his apartment and crafting an album that captures the intimacy of the surroundings that gave it life. The title track dates back to Steve Gates early Vancouver busking days, the rapid fire of the verse brings to mind one of those long-winded John Prine word strings that always land on a punch line. “You Were Always on My Mind” gets an excellent Indie Americana makeover as a duet with Catherine MacLellan. Steve Gates voice rises and cuts a path along the “Highway of Tears”, giving the pain of loss no restrictions, as the song plays as a tribute to the women who have gone missing along Highway 16 as it stretches from Prince George to Prince Robert, Nova Scotia. Solo performing is a side track from Steve Gates past few years as part of Caledonia.
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Danielle Miraglia
Danielle Miraglia’s guitar work keeps Delta traditions alive. Her steady thumb and playing style trace a direct line to the blues of the field and chicken shacks. Vocally, Danielle’s voice digs in, twisting within the delivery, seeming to break but more likely soaring before the fall. ‘Box of Troubles’ balances good times with the bad, her characters roles’ defined and believable. As “See The Light” bounces along its way, Danielle’s voice calls you forward to join the parade, pushing you on for one more try, “I’m all right, if you’re all right, it’s so dark I can see the light”. For “Choir”, she mines musical history, citing Dylan’s role to make things right, hearing the hope and seeing the limitations by pointing out that “no one is listening but the choir”. The mix of guitar work and voice is one in the songs of Danielle Miraglia. Her loss is tangible in “Another Round”, you can tell that whatever was is over but Danielle holds out hope, grabbing the sleeve of the departing love interest, “have another round with me, please don’t leave me alone at sea” the only sound to be heard. It is testament to the Danielle’s lure that when she pauses within the song to raise one last plea, your breath stops with hers as she waits for the reply.
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Ian Siegal
Ian Siegal has ‘The Skinny’, and he and The Youngest Sons are here to lay it
out…”between the bottle and the throttle what you find is that you gotta lotta watchin’ or you’d wind up dead, it’s gonna take a lot of faith, from the heavens down to the ground….here’s the skinny, the low down”. Following the siren call that fueled British bluesmen like The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds and The Bluesbreakers, fellow Brit Ian Siegal surrounds himself with the sound of soul scraping rhythms, adds some Southern hoodoo, then plugs in with an all-star cast of North Mississippi Hill Country musicians to deliver ‘The Skinny’. Recorded in the Mississippi studio of the late, great Jim Dickinson, Ian Siegal stacked the deck with lineage in forming The Youngest Sons, tapping Cody Dicknison (Jim’s son), Garry Burnside (son of R.L.), Robert Kimbrough (son of Junior) and Rodd Bland (son of Bobby ‘Blue’). The album sounds as it should, electric juke joint blues, forcing tough words and tattered edged riffs into the confines of a song. ‘The Skinny’ is raw and lean but, man, it is all the fat with grooves.
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Kay Kay & The Rays
Kay Kay Greenwade knows she has a message. She is a blues soul preacher, her soapbox is a stage, and Kay Kay has managed to squeeze a premier sampling of her past work on ‘The Best of Kay Kay & The Rays”. Based in Odessa, Texas Kay Kay & The Rays fire their first salvo in the hits package at homegrown laws with “Lone Star Justice”, showing how verdicts walk up the economic ladders. The soul of the band provides heart and spirit for the songs, supported by the word and music. She is naming names in “Enron Field”, “Stop the Killing”, “Crossfire” and “Texas Justice-Billy’s Story”. The finger points more personal in “No Mama’s Boys”, “Hold on to What You Got”, “Don’t Have to Tell Me” and “There’ll Come A Time” and Kay Kay shows that her passion to note what is right versus wrong is measured out equally for world platform and for matters of the heart. Showing a layer of rust under the silver screen, Kay Kay & The Rays pull back the curtain on dreams, showing that the levers and strings are being tugged on by nightmares in “Lord Save Me From L.A.”
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Wayne Haught
It’s a family affair. Joined by his sister Annie, Wayne Haught offers ‘The Crying Kind’, a
modern take on classic country gospel. The message, and the story lines, can be traced back to when praying went to its first dance. The rousing spirit of homespun gospel guitars, fiddles and banjo remains firmly in place while lyrically, Wayne Haught contemporizes devotional songs with characters, their outlooks and the ways of describing life showing a calendar date of 2011. Though we are a fragile world, tenderness is in short supply. Wayne Haught gives traditional spiritual songs some tough love. The results show that serving someone needs a harder layer for the modern ages. Jesus gets a hard ass makeover in “Nail Scars” and stars as a “dead man in a picture frame” in “Jesus Under Glass”. Wayne Haught’s message is not the one where the meek inherit the earth, more like ‘hey, want that salvation?.....well, do ya, punk?”. He diaries getting down with demons every night and finds himself on his knees with the preachers wife in “Catching Hell”, looks in on the after party for your favorite bible stories in “Drunk All The Time” and raises a mighty ruckus under a laundry list of wrong turns in “Satan Said Yes”.
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J.T. Coldfire
J.T. Coldfire is a Texas bluesman, based in Austin. J.T. is a long haul player, logging in nine hours for a three show night without any repeats. He opens ‘Crazy Sun’ with some Delta blues channeled through “Pistol Lead”, walks “White Collar Street Life” uptown, keeping company with some slow cooked blues riffs, keeps “No Time For Sleepin’” wide awake with caffeinated rhythms and riffs so sharp they could cut through the strongest cup of joe and high steps “Hangin’ Tree” into the next life to find some peace. J.T. Coldfire struts and slides, rapid riffs and laid back licks with a lifetimes worth of blues textures jammed into his songs.
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Stephen Simmons
Whether supported by his beat-up Guild guitar and harmonica or backed with full band,
Stephen Simmons uses his natural vocal ability to pour a warmth into his words and life into his characters that makes the songs as bright as a summer morning. His characters take some missteps but Stephen’s voice cushions any falls. With a healthy dose of acoustic Americana surrounding the stories that make up ‘The Big Show’, his sixth album effort, Stephen Simmons crafts singer/songwriter gems and polishes the tunes with cloth ripped form the fabric of daily lives. A deep well of understanding human nature make the songs of Stephen Simmons fix the tear by coming into your life like a conversation between friends.
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