CD Review
Various Artists
Bar Room Blues: A 12-Track Program
(Telarc, 2004, CD-83594)
by Steve Mainwaring
Review date: October 2004
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"Keeping the Blues Alive Award" Achievement for Blues on the Internet Presented by The Blues Foundation
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Why am I reviewing this? It’s an album dedicated to drunken debauched licentiousness, so obviously no Blues-On-Stager is likely to be interested in it. I suppose I’ll carry on just in case anybody might come onto this website by mistake, thinking it might advocate the demon drink and the immorality that seems to go with it.
First of all, a health warning: don’t drink and buy this CD. All the tracks are available on other Telarc CDs, so you might find when you sober up that you’ve already got several of them. If you don’t want to get wrecked to listen to it you could use it as a Telarc blues sampler, but the price doesn’t appear to reflect this option. And considering it’s 100% recycled, the 48 minutes’ playing time isn’t overly generous. It’s well packaged, including full personnel lists, but not well enough to make it irresistible value.
The label have gathered together twelve tracks of an alcoholic nature to get us into the spirit. Or vice versa. It starts strongly with Tommy Castro’s version of the Stones’ “Rip This Joint”, then we get Tab Beboit getting loaded and Charlie Musselwhite in the “Cold Grey Light Of Dawn”, which surprisingly sounds more like country than blues. A couple of good ones follow, Kenny Neal’s thoughtful and emotional “Whiskey Tears” and “If The Sea Was Whiskey” from a CD of Willie Dixon songs. Doug Wainoris gets the credit as the singer, but it’s a fine group effort with noteworthy contributions from Jerry Portnoy’s harp and David Maxwell’s piano. We then get a series of tracks that are good in a workmanlike way, if less inspiring than a good bourbon. Troy Turner does “Later Than You Think”, Junior Wells “Last Hand Of The Night” and Sam Lay “Pure Grain Alcohol”. “My New Baby Owns A Whiskey Store” is credited to Bob Margolin as part of his “All Star Blues Jam” but is really Mookie Brill’s feature.
The final three tracks are the ones that clinch it for me. They start with “Feelin’ No Pain” by Tinsley Ellis. At eight minutes this is by some way the longest track here and he doesn’t waste the time. The guitar solo builds and builds and there’s a tension that you only get in the finest blues. The mood he creates is smashed by Luther ‘Guitar Junior’ Johnson and his raucous version of the Cheathams’ “Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On”. I don’t actually wear them myself, but it sounds as if it might be fun. Lastly Tab Benoit and Kenny Neal reappear with Willie Nelson’s “Night Life”. This song is the opposite of the Musselwhite track, a country man showing he knows what the blues is all about, and Benoit and Neal do it full justice.
Program the best tracks as long as you can focus. Then just press ‘repeat’ until you pass out.
Website: www.telarc.com
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Copyright © 2004 Ray M. Stiles & Blues On Stage All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. Blues On Stage is a ® Trademark of Ray Stiles.
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