Kim Wilson’s October 20^th release Blues and Boogie is easily his best studio effort since 1997’s My Blues. Here, Wilson sheds the baggage of his recent soul-pop-blues offerings under The Fabulous Thunderbirds banner and gets down to what he does best which, as the album’s name implies, is straight ahead natural blues…and boogie. This Severn Records release features a cadre of blues heavyweights and includes the late Barrelhouse Chuck on piano and the world’s greatest blues drummer, who we also lost just a couple of years ago, Richard Innes. Recorded at Nathan James' Sacred Cat Studios in Oceanside, California, this one is a real winner.





Ward, a long time New England based blues, side man has made a compelling and entertaining album under his own name. All original material, save one tune, penned by the guitarist and vocalist is as well written as it is well executed. Peter Ward is the brother of bass player Mudcat Ward of Sugar Ray and the Bluetones. Members of that band play on several of this album’s thirteen tracks. They include Mudcat of course, as well as Ray Norcia who blows harp and is even a guest vocalist on one song. Bluetones’ drummer Neil Govan, along with pianist Anthony Geraci and guitarist Monster Mike Welch, is also featured on several songs. Other special guests include long time New Englanders guitarist Ronnie Earl and sax man Gordon Beadle.



This Munich, Germany, based band mines the songs from the pre-war era of acoustic blues and does so in a fresh and compelling way. Black Patti is vocalist, guitar player and harp man Peter Crow C. along with Ferdinand "Jelly Roll” Kraemer on vocals, guitar and mandolin. They are joined by guest bassist Ryan Donohue who also adds some background vocals to the proceedings. This, the band’s second album, could be nothing more than an exercise in ethno-musicology, which it is to some extent, if it weren’t for the fact that the band has written a thirteen-song program of entirely new material. Black Patti who took their name from Mayo Williams’ short lived “race record” label of the late 20’s, is making music seldom heard, but worth a listen. You just might be drawn into another world of great sounds of which you might not otherwise be familiar.



Riley, a Mississippi native and long-time journeyman on the Chicago blues scene, has, in recent years, found himself  as a member of Bob Corritore’s Phoenix based Rhythm Room All-Stars. For his latest release he has gone from the great Southwest to South America and put out a recording backed and produced by some very talented musicians from Buenos Aires, Argentina. With tremendous support from harp man Junior Binzuagna, this might be the best album of Riley’s long career.



After nearly 30 years and over a dozen albums this Hildesheim, Germany, based blues band returns to their strength, which is original material set to the mood of the swinging sounds of west coast meets Chicago blues of the 50’s and 60’s. The brothers Arlt,  Michael, on vocals and harmonica and Andreas on guitar lead the charge throughout this exceptional set of music. (For a complete album review, check out our Monthly Album Spotlight for October).



This band comes at listeners like an old locomotive...chugging, belching smoke and relentlessly lurching down the tracks. This, their first full length album, is yet another satisfying offering of vintage sounds from Rhythm Bomb Records. Engineered and produced by Rawand Baziany at his Black Shack Studios in the Black Forest,  a dark, forbidding mood surrounds these tunes. A sound akin to The Red Devils meets The 44’s abounds on One Beer Left. Here a mix of covers and originals, three penned by Baziany, are offered up with all the subtlety of a brick in the face.



Subtitled: Drinking Songs Straight from the Juke Joint, these are twenty-eight tunes about trying to get eighty sixed. While the album title implies that these are songs about wine and whiskey, there are plenty of tunes which deal with non-specific states of inebriation such as Jimmy Rogers' Sloppy Drunk which originally appeared on Chess Records and Jimmy Liggin’s tune I Ain’t Drunk on the Aladdin label. There are even songs about suds, such as Dave Bartholomew’s Who Drank My Beer While I Was in The Rear on the Imperial imprint. Great stuff from the German based Koko Mojo label. Please enjoy responsibly.

This album has been something that fans of Jimmie Vaughan have been looking forward to for some time and it doesn’t disappoint. The fact that it was decided to put out a live record was, in my mind, a brilliant move. Live at C-Boy’s really captures a moment in time and puts listeners in an atmospheric setting that is vintage cool and vintage Vaughan…which of course is the same thing. Vaughan is actually a regular special guest with the B3 player Mike Flanigin and part of his trio which also included the legendary drummer Barry “Frosty” Smith, who passed away earlier this year. He has been playing in Austin with these two musicians for a few years now when he isn’t on the road with his own Tilt-A-Whirl band. These three give listeners a peek into an eight-song groove fest that reeks of low down blues with an uptown feel.  For a complete album review see our Monthly Album Spotlight feature. 

From Jim Pugh’s Little Village Foundation comes yet another compelling and very interesting recording which in many ways defies convention and embraces that notion all at the same time. Howell Devine is essentially Joshua Howell on vocals, guitar and harmonica along with Pete Devine on drums, washboard and jug. The two are augmented by bassist Joe Kyle Jr. Like many of Pugh’s Little Village releases which fall under the blues spectrogram, this offering was recorded at Kid Andersen’s Greaseland Studios. It is Andersen who can be heard playing organ on two tracks on Howl. This, the band’s fourth album, is somewhat defined by those two tracks. It demonstrates the versatility of this band and points out that you can put songs by Grant Green and the Meters alongside tunes by Blind Blake, Sonny Boy Williamson, R.L. Burnside and Hound Dog Taylor…if you are Howell Devine that is. 

Twenty years after this live performance was recorded and ten years after his death, Paul de Lay is back with a wonderful new album recorded at the famed Notodden Blues Festival in Norway. This Portland, Oregon, based harmonica player, songwriter and singer fronted an exceptional band on this eleven-song program which features ten de Lay originals. This newly discovered recording captures a unique voice in the blues field and one that was sadly overlooked in his lifetime and has, for the most part, been all but forgotten since. This album, which is also on the Little Village Foundation label, might go a long way to rectify this fact. If you are new to the music of Paul de Lay, this might be a good starting off point. Welcome to the party. I doubt very much you will want to leave anytime soon.  Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t ever heard anybody play the blues harp quite like this, that’s OK, nobody else has either.                                                                                                          

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