CD Review
Hash Brown & The Browntones
Have Some Fun!
Browntone (2002) BR-3062
13 tracks, 50 minutes.
by Craig Ruskey
Review date: May 2003
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"Keeping the Blues Alive Award" Achievement for Blues on the Internet Presented by The Blues Foundation
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While the scene in Texas might not seem as healthy as it has been in years past, as long as there are folks like Brian Hash Brown Calway making their presence known, blues in the Lone Star state will continue to be solid and vital and well worth searching out. While Calway is a guitarist of note, he's also a meat and potatoes harp player who realizes the importance of tone, as well as a vocalist with a good set of pipes. The baker's dozen here consist of eight originals and some fine covers, including Sam Myers' I've Got The Blues, Jackie Brenston and Ike Turner's You've Got To Lose, Little Walter's Muskadine Blues, and one each from Jimmy Rogers and James Cotton, You're The One and Soul Survivor respectively, each showing sincere
respect for tradition but never bogging down from note-for-note recreations. Of the self-penned items, there's the Chicago swagger of Celluphone Blues with rich harmonica, thick chromatic in a grinding The Woman I Love, lowdown, back alley blues heard in Glory Of A Man, and swinging T-Bone Walker infused jump showing in Poultry Queen Boogie. If the abilities of Hash Brown dishing out serious blues harp isn't enough, add the gritty guitar playing of Nick Curran, Jon
Moeller, and Elliot Sowell to the mix, potent piano from Matt Farrell and John Street, and bottom end from the bass of either John Bradley or Jeremy Fuller, and in-the-pocket drumming from Marc Wilson and Jay Moeller, and there's more than enough talent to make this one of the finer self-released discs in a while. Produced by Brown and longtime friend Sam Myers and recorded between Fort Horton and ASC Sumet Studios in June of 2000 and completed in May of last year, Have Some Fun! from
Hash Brown & The Browntones is a smoldering set showing, once again, that Texas continues to be a gathering place for blues musicians with plenty to offer.
http://browntonerecords.com/browntones.htm
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