For Sassparilla frontman and songwriter Kevin Blackwell, there is one lyric in particular on the band’s eight studio album, Honey, I’m Using Again, that feels especially truthful to where he is at this stage of his life: “Despite all my kicking / My protesting / I’ll be damned that I got old,” he bemoans on ‘I’ll Be Damned’, but inevitability of ageing is just one of the honest looks at the human experience explored on the LP. As its title suggests, addiction is also covered, along with homelessness and death. These are subjects that could feel like a chore to listen to, but with the band’s mix of punk and americana, they make for a fresh batch of invigorating, short, sharp life lessons with a Southern gothic flavour to them.
‘When I Get Off This Mountain’, heavy with…
Category: blues
Mike Finnigan: if you know you know, and if you don’t, you probably know Electric Ladyland. In June 1968, The Jimi Hendrix Experience were booked into New York’s Record Plant, as were The Serfs from Wichita, Kansas, cutting their only album, The Early Bird Café. “Jimi happened to hear us and said he’d like to have us play on his record,” the Hammond B-3 maestro Mike Finnigan told MOJO in 2008. “Jimi was very easy-going, very loose. His notion was the Jimmy Smith organ quartet with a different kind of slant, and we jammed it down on the spot. If I’d had any sense I’d have got some writer’s credit on that Rainy Day deal. And I never got paid for the session, by God!”
Was this the moment the affably self-effacing Finnigan heard his calling as a sideman to…
There have been a few singles from the UK band, Wille and Bandits, shared on this site that have drawn enthusiastic responses. Let’s fill in some blanks, now that their new album, Salt Roots, has arrived. The band hails from Cornwall, a place that almost feels like the Deep South of the UK, rural, coastal, variable weather, and a place that prides itself on rugged individualism. The band’s live shows have audiences abuzz.
Frontman Wille Edwards (lead vocals, Dobro, lap steel, electric and acoustic guitars) has drawn acclaim from both fans and giants such as Joe Bonamassa and Beth Hart, who have toured with the band. Hammond organist Stevie Watts was voted UK Instrumentalist of the Year. The bass-drum tandem of Harry Mackaill and Joe Harris…
Too many blues and blues-rock guitarists try to impress their audiences by playing a blazing series of multiple notes, yet fail to make a statement. San Diego-based, BMA Award winner Laura Chavez, on the other hand, manages to consistently ‘say something.’ There simply are not many guitarists who stand side by side with the great Ronnie Earl and earn his respect like Chavez.
…A true feel player, Chavez held down many memorable gigs with the late Candye Kane. There are several others in her orbit, too, including Deborah Coleman, Dani Wilde, The Mannish Boys, Mike Ledbetter, Monster Mike Welch, Casey Hensley, and Whitney Shay. Blues guitar fans have long acknowledged Chavez’s skills as the consummate side person. Her debut as…
Milwaukee’s Altered Five Blues Band is nearing the quarter-century mark and returns with their eighth studio album, Hammer & Chisel. The multiple BMA nominees are one of the most dependable, hard-driving blues units on the scene. Once again, Tom Hambridge is in the producer’s chair for the sixth consecutive time. As such, the album was recorded in Nashville. Principal songwriter and guitarist Jeff Schroedl is now the head of Blind Pig Records, the band’s label for nearly the past decade.
Schroedl is one of four original members who have been on board since the inception. The others include vocalist Jeff Taylor, bassist Mark Solveson, and drummer Alan Arber. New member Steve Huebler is on keyboards, replacing original member Raymond Tevich, to whom they…
One glance at the credits to Nashville by-way-of Canada guitarist Garret T. Willie’s second release, and any blues rocker who reads liner notes knows this is a worthy addition to the genre without hearing a note.
When you attract veteran talent like producer/drummer Tom Hambridge, along with the blessing of Gulf Coast label co-owner and blues star Mike Zito, and well-known backing musicians such as Audley Freed and Kevin McKendree, it’s clear this youngster has captured the attention of some of the most respected guys in the business. That’s an impressive feat for someone only on his second album, working in an arena with plenty of competition from players who have devoted many more years perfecting their craft.
The lineage of Chicago blues slide guitarists runs from Elmore James to Hound Dog Taylor to J.B. Hutto to Lil’ Ed Williams. Williams’ career, at 49+ years, is the longest of any. Of course, many of you know that he learned his trade from “Uncle J.B” Hutto. Williams’ band, The Blues Imperials, has been together for an astounding 38 years, unheard of for a blues unit. Not only that, but they are the longest continual entity in the Alligator catalog. Other artists joined the label before 1986, but they had stints at other labels before returning to Alligator. Slideways is the band’s tenth album for the label.
Fan favorites at live shows and festivals, their followers have affectionately been dubbed “Ed Heads.” What separates the charismatic,…
The Guy Hamper Trio was formed by Billy Childish, after a chat with his friend James Taylor (Hammond organ).
Billy and James had played respectively in The Milkshakes and The Prisoners, often sharing the same bill in the early 80’s, leading to Billy’s blues ensemble The Natural Born Lovers being the support act for the early shows of The James Taylor Quartet.
The Guy Hamper Trio is: Billy Childish on guitar, his wife Julie on bass and Wolf on drums – who as it happens was the drummer in the original incarnation of JTQ – and of course features James Taylor on Hammond organ.
The Guy Hamper Trio provide a bottom end, Blues-influenced instrumental mayhem for those…
It’s not clear how many albums veteran guitarist and occasional songwriter Duke Robillard has recorded (his publicity cites between 35 and 38, and that’s just from the post-Roomful of Blues years starting in 1985).
But at 77 he is nearing the twilight of a prolific run that hasn’t seen many, if any, misfires in a quest to deliver rollicking rocking, jump blues, rockabilly, and energized jazz to a dedicated and appreciative, if rather cult, audience.
Along the way, Robillard has supported or produced artists as diverse as Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Earl, John Hammond, Ruth Brown, Joe Louis Walker and a couple of dozen other talented icons who traverse similar musical territory. It has been an active, colorful, busy livelihood and…
Craft Recordings mark the tenth anniversary of The Record Company’s Grammy®-nominated debut with an expanded deluxe edition of Give It Back to You. The reissue pairs the original 10-track album featuring the chart-topping “Off the Ground,” alongside fan favorites “Rita Mae Young” and “On the Move” with a newly unearthed live document: the band’s legendary Living Room concert, recorded in bassist Alex Stiff’s Los Feliz home in 2013.
Heard today, Give It Back to You still lands with the same immediacy that helped launch the band a decade ago. The songs are built on tight interplay, gritty textures, and a lived-in blues-rock feel that favors momentum over excess polish. There’s a directness to the writing and performance that makes the album easy to return to-hooks…
First Light, Sean Taylor’s latest release, is like a collection of broadside ballads; song sheets with the ink still wet, hawked on street corners from the 16th century for some 300 years.
As immediate as news bulletins, the songs were meant to provide information and insights into the happenings of the day. Taylor is the modern equivalent of the songmonger, the travelling troubadour who writes to inform, inspire and challenge his audience. He has been at it for decades. First Light is his 15th album.
While Taylor may be the continuation of an old tradition, his music evinces a multitude of influences. He is a multi-instrumentalist who focuses primarily on piano and guitar. His music has elements of blues, jazz, folk and…
Joe Bonamassa releases B.B. King’s Blues Summit 100, A Landmark Tribute Album Featuring Dozens Of Music Stars To Celebrate The King Of Blues’ 100th Birthday. The result is a bespoke project, nine months in the making, with contributions from Buddy Guy, Keb’ Mo’, Slash, Shemekia Copeland, Marcus King, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Larkin Poe, Jimmie Vaughan, Warren Haynes, Dion, Aloe Blacc, Kirk Fletcher, and many others. Each artist was matched with material that felt personal – sometimes surprising – and all were given space to interpret King’s catalog through their own lens.
Bonamassa, who first opened for B.B. King at age 12, credits the blues titan with shaping his approach to music and life. “He mentored me,” says Bonamassa. “But I wasn’t the only one.
“We’re gonna light it, we’re gonna burn it down” this veteran roots rocking trio shouts in unison on the opening track of the band’s seventh offering. And that’s the blueprint for the next 30-plus minutes on ‘Barnburners!’.
The threesome emerges out of upstate New York, but you’d never know it from the deep swamp groove they wallow in with all the energy and integrity of a group that was eating polk salad greens for three meals a day. As if to acknowledge that, they cover Tony Joe White’s hit “Polk Salad Annie” (the woman whose tough qualities likely came from her mama who was working on a chain gang) with an authentic soul/blues straight out of the deep South. Lead singer/guitarist Jamison Passuite (the band’s founder and…
The pairing of West Side Chicago vocalist and harpist Omar Coleman and Brazilian guitarist Igor Prado is another great signing for the rapidly growing NOLA Blue label. Old, New, Funky & Blue is a testament to America’s original art form, increasingly becoming a universal language.
Prado, one of the most exciting guitarists on the international scene, familiar to U.S. blues fans through the defunct Delta Groove label, has continued to record albums since 2015’s Way Down South, but has received relatively little notice in the States. We last heard from Coleman in his pairing with guitarist Eddie Roberts on their 2024 Strange Times.
As the album title suggests, this collaboration extends beyond strictly 12-bar blues and…
Strolling down memory lane is something Marc Broussard enjoys. And it has proven more popular than even he likely imagined.
Since 2007s S.O.S. (Save Our Soul), the New Orleans-bred blue-eyed soul man has been sporadically releasing additional discs in an ongoing series revisiting some of his favorite songs, all between albums of his material.
The music covers a diverse span; from children’s ditties (2017s Vol. 3: A Lullaby Collection) to deep soul/blues (the Joe Bonamassa-enhanced Vol. 4: Blues for Your Soul). There was also a Christmas set, 2015s Magnolias and Mistletoe, not under the S.O.S. moniker but with a similar approach.
This side-road has been remarkably rewarding. The majority of Broussard’s most played…
Chicago-born and Springfield, Illinois-based blues and soul man Charles Tiner bursts out of your speaker with the kind of unrelenting power that immediately commands attention. It’s his overpowering organ and a potent voice to match. The aptly named Good Soul grabs tight and never lets go. The soloists in Tiner’s band, whether from four different lead guitarists, tenor saxophonist Theo Fisher, or harmonicist Chris Camp, match his fire too. This gospel-infused, roof-raising session will arouse even the most slumberous types. Yet there is little spiritual fare. Only the oft covered “Don’t Let the Devil Ride” qualifies. The rest of the tracks have their roots in the blues, both musically and topically, as Tiner sings mostly about survival, requited and unrequited love,…
There are some notable firsts for UK singer/songwriter/guitarist Laurence Jones’ On My Own. It’s not only his debut on the blues-rocking artist’s own, recently established label (Ron Records), but the only instance in his eight title catalog recorded entirely in solo acoustic mode. It’s also his most personal statement.
Most of these changes to the once fully plugged-in, some might say over-amped, and roaring attack Jones typically favored are integral to continuing his career dealing with Crohn’s disease. It’s an ailment he has suffered from for years and has become a spokesman for. According to his notes, the physical toll of leading a band and constant touring was not something he could continue due to the illness sapping his energy.
It’s been four-and-a-half years since hearing from Harlem-based vocalist and guitar slinger Solomon Hicks (no longer using “King” to precede his first name) on his album, Harlem. Now in his late twenties, Hicks’s sound continues to progress. When many of us were first introduced to him about a decade ago, we reveled in his clean, no pedals sound and pure, soulful Sam Cooke-like voice. He came across as an ‘old soul’ in a young man’s body, with a handsome smile, dressed to the nines. At that time, he was playing mostly covers, and many of us were projecting what he might sound like with original material.
That core of his sound and propensity to lean on covers remains intact, but his sound is now shrouded in electronica and a bit of gadgetry…
One Moment in Time: Live in the USA is the logical extension of the process of refinement that Robin Trower has undertaken with his studio albums of recent years. Running roughly 77 minutes in duration on compact disc and a double LP vinyl set, fourteen tracks taken from two shows on a 2025 American tour allow the British guitar hero to do justice to a solo career begun in 1971 upon his departure from Procol Harum.
It is utterly pragmatic that Trower collaborates with some of the same individuals with whom he’s fashioned such finely-honed expressions of contemporary blues like last year’s Come and Find Me and No More Worlds to Conquer from three years prior. The recordings were mixed for maximum detail by Sam Winfield…
Folk and blues legend Eric Bibb has garnered numerous Blues Music Awards Awards and Grammy nominations over the course of five decades and 34 albums. Regarded as a blues legend, his output is consistently strong.
One Mississippi is a direct follow-up to 2024’s In the Real World, rendering almost entirely original material with a similar backing cast. Once again, Bibb works with longtime musical director and producer, co-writer, and multi-instrumentalist Glen Scott, along with slide guitarist Robbie McIntosh and fiddler Esbjorn Hazelius. Select tracks draw in strings, background vocalists, and other flourishes. The tracks center around Bibb’s immaculate acoustic guitar and banjo playing, his vocals, and heartfelt lyrics.