Gregg Allman Low Country Blues (4.5* if you're a Gregg fan, 4* otherwise)
A glance at the track listing for Gregg Allman's first album of new material since 1997's Searchin' for Simplicity might have the average blues fan scratching his head with a What? This lot again? Floating Bridge? Devil Got My Woman? I Can't Be Satisfied? Checking On My Baby? Rolling Stone?
Sure, the album's largely comprised of covers that may or may not have been done to death already (mileages will vary on that, of course) but there's a warmth to the performances that has me putting another large tick beside the name of producer T-Bone Burnett, who's done a wonderful job of matching Allman's world-weary drawl to classic material that fits him like a well-worn overcoat.
Cut in an L.A. studio with a classy assembly of musos (most notably Dr John/Mac Rebennack on keys, Doyle Bramhall II on guitar and Dennis Crouch on upright bass) there's a comfortable retro warmth to a set of performances that were cut live in the studio and sound that way. Crouch, in particular, shines (as he did on the most recent Elvis Costello waxings, also Burnett-produced). Can’t beat that slap bass. Watch your back Danny Thompson...
Tab Benoit Voice of the Wetlands (4*) 
Sighting a download of a recent concert by the Voice of the Wetlands All Stars featuring Tab Benoit, Cyril Neville, Anders Osborne and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux seemed like a fairly sure no-brainer, and it didn't take long before Hughesy was heading off in search of the album I'd noted in passing when it was released in 2005. Founded by Tab Benoit, whose home town of Houma is right on the edge of the wetlands to the west of the Mississippi delta, in 2004, Voice of the Wetlands aims to promote awareness of the receding coastal wetlands of Louisiana and predates Hurricane Katrina though the events of August 2005 brought the issues into a focus that was all too clear. With members born and raised in the Louisiana wetlands who continue to live there, the Foundation's activities cover a number of fronts, including an annual music festival, taking New Orleans musicians to perform at the National Conventions of both major political parties and supporting projects that aim to replenish the wetlands' vegetation.
The Voice of the Wetlands album appeared shortly after Katrina, though it was recorded eight months earlier, the result of an increasing awareness of the threats faced by an increasingly fragile ecosystem. That awareness meant Benoit had no difficulty assembling an all star cast, with vocal duties shared around Benoit, Anders Osborne, Dr. John, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux from the Wild Magnolias and Cyril Neville. With Benoit and Osborne on guitars, Dr John handling the keyboards, an ace rhythm section in the Meters' George Porter, Jr. and drummer Johnny Vidacovich, with tonal variations added by Cyril Neville's percussion, Waylon Thibodeaux on fiddle and Jumpin' Johnny Sansone on harmonica and accordion. Tasty.
David Bromberg Use Me (4*)
As you might expect, someone who has been associated with the likes of Reverend Gary Davis, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jerry Garcia,Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, Jorma Kaukonen isn't going to be short of musical friends and acquaintances. On Use Me David Bromberg calls in some musical favours from Dr. John, Levon Helm, Linda Ronstadt, John Hiatt, Widespread Panic and Los Lobos to produce an album that offers a lively amalgam of blues, folk, jazz, bluegrass and country & western, played with Bromberg's characteristic restrained virtuosity.
After returning from a recording hiatus lasting 17 years for 2007's Try Me One More Time (in the meantime he's been operating a violin sales and repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware, with his wife) this effort, recorded on the various guest artists' home turf (Levon Helm in Woodstock, Dr John in New Orleans, Nashville for John Hiatt, Tim O’Brien and Vince Gill, Los Angeles for Los Lobos) works the same territory he's been mining through a lengthy career.
If you're looking for rootsy eclecticism, with very classy performances on fiddle, acoustic and electric guitar, pedal steel and dobro with warm vocals and a classy lineup of guests who don't get in the way, Bromberg's your man.
Los Cenzontles Raza de Oro (4*)
While I was unaware of this outfit prior to their involvement with the Chieftains on San Patricio, Los Cenzontles (The Mockingbirds) have been around for a while and are worth a look at regardless of the presence of guests like Ry Cooder, Los Lobos' David Hidalgo and Taj Mahal. As a development from a project to develop interest in traditional Mexican music and dance, you'd expect that there'd be a substantial degree of authenticity, and that's the way it sounds to these (admittedly non-expert) ears. Raza de Oro won't be the last album I'll be buying. Want something musical to go with your tacos? Look no further. Go for a little Tempranillo to wash it all down.
Ry Cooder Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (4.5*)
Having spent much of his career cutting other people’s material (with, admittedly, his own slant thereon) you might have been inclined to think Cooder couldn’t write, but the flurry of largely self-written albums that followed Chavez Ravine would have definitely put that particular furphy to rest. It’s more a case of whether he’s got something to write about, and since he’s a man of definite opinions there’s plenty of subject matter out there at the moment.
This time, after theme-based albums about Latino villages (Chavez Ravine), red cat labour activists (My Name is Buddy) and steel guitar players driving hot rods on the salt-pans (I Flathead) we’ve got a collection of songs that take a look at some current themes from a left-liberal perspective. Starting with No Banker Left Behind, which sees all the bankers catching the next train out of town and taking all the money with them to the closing No Hard Feelings, which effectively (very effectively) rewrites Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land we’ve got a variety of topics from the ghost of Jesse James, illegal immigrants crossing into Arizona (Quicksand), the jobs they get once they’re there (Dirty Chateau), the Deity’s view of humanity (Humpty Dumpty World, If There’s a God), American military adventurism (Christmas Time This Year, Baby Joined the Army) right wing union busters (I Want My Crown) and channels John Lee Hooker (JLH for President). Impeccable guitar work as usual, Flaco Jimenez on accordion, son Joachim on drums and his regular gospel-based backing vocalists in there as well, the result is an album that’s up there with the best of his extensive discography.
Devo Something For Everybody (3.5*)
It's a good forty years since Kent State University art students Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis started kicking around the idea that humanity, rather than evolving in positive directions had begun to head in the other direction. That concept mightn't have been immediately obvious on the surface as those theories transformed themselves into an outfit called Devo and were subsequently translated into reasonably successful singles like Whip It! but it didn't take too much delving to discover the irony that was lurking below the surface. Personally I've always had a soft spot for the old Spud Boys without having had the urge to go out and corral their entire recorded output. Having noted the release of 2010's Something For Everybody, however, I'd added it to the shopping list before I found it on special for $9.99 at iTunes, along with Jenny and Johnny's I'm Having Fun Now. Despite a twenty-year gap between studio albums not much seems to have changed. The synthesisers burble away, the voices don't seem to have aged, and the lyrical content is pretty much what the cognoscenti would expect. An interesting listen, assuming you like that kind of thing, though I'm not sure I'd have been buying at full price.
J. Geils Band The J. Geils Band (4*)
Although I'm a long-time lover of 1972's Live: Full House, it took quite a while for Hughesy to catch up on the rest of the J. Geils Band's back catalogue, at least as far as the CD versions are concerned, and possibly if I hadn't seen this self-titled first album in Kobe's Tower Records I mightn't have started.
$16.99 for eleven tracks that clock in at a tad over 33 minutes might seem pretty steep if you're looking at iTunes, but if it ever turns up with an el cheapo sticker in a CD store you could do a lot worse than this initial collection of tasty trimmed down old style R&B. Sure, it doesn't burn with the same intensity of Live: Full House, which repeats more than half of this material in a concert setting, but nothing is likely to match that album's eight track punch. Hughesy's suggestion for would-be R&B fans? Start here, proceed through The Morning After ($16.90) and end on Live: Full House, marvelling at the difference the concert setting makes. Assuming you can locate copies with the el cheapo sticker, of course.
JJ Grey And Mofro Georgia Warhorse (4*)
A mention of a Derek Trucks guest spot in Mojo's review of the album pointed me this way, and an initial listen revealed the presence of Toots Hibbert as well. But regardless of the calibre of the sit-ins, it's the quality of the material and the performance that's important, and Grey's warm vocals and the relaxed southern groove that runs throughout makes for a pleasant listening experience without demanding too much. Named for a grasshopper, this one mightn't have me racing out in search of the other four albums listed at iTunes, but they're on the shopping list. File under tasteful Southern gently funky Muscle Shoals music.
John Hiatt The Open Road (4*)
There are any number of under-appreciated singer/songwriters plying their trade out there, and you get some idea of the competition when something like this latest collection of road songs from someone as good as John Hiatt can slip by almost unnoticed, It’s thirty-seven years since Hangin’ Around the Observatory, and nearly twenty since his collaboration with Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe and Jim Keltner in the short-lived Little Village, but here he is still plugging away. The vocals still have their trademark eccentricities, and everything’s played with taste and crisp efficiency. Another minor masterpiece from a writer who deserves wider recognition, but if it hasn’t lobbed on his doorstep in close to four decades you can bet Hiatt isn’t holding his breath waiting for it to happen.
The Izzys Keep Your Powder Dry (4*)
With any number of echoes from the quality end of the past forty-something years. I heard a fair bit of Pete Townsend and Ronnie Lane in the opening Tear 'em On Down, which may be the result of recent exposure to Rough Mix but it continues throughout, while the EP concludes with a reading of the Jerry Garcia Deal. One to listen to with a fellow music freak and a decent glass of red while you do a bit of I'm getting a hint of with the wine and the music. Derivative, perhaps, but it sounds like they're operating from some pretty classy influences.
Bert Jansch Bert Jansch (4*)
Around ten years ago I was marvelling at the sonic beauty of Roddy Frame's Surf, recorded in his living room, allegedly on his iMac, but here, going back close to fifty years ago is a stark reminder that you don't need state of the art recording facilities to produce something that comes across crystal clear and moves in excess of 150,000 copies. Recorded in producer/engineer Bill Leader's flat on a semi-professional Revox tape recorder with blankets and egg boxes for soundproofing, from the opening Strolling Down the Highway, it's a seventeen track ramble through fingerpicked originals with Jimmy Giuffre's Smokey River and two takes on Davey Graham's Angie (one of them a live performance) with a nod to Charles Mingus on Alice's Wonderland. A glance at titles like Oh How Your Love Is Strong, I Have No Time, Rambling's Gonna Be the Death of Me, Running from Home and Dreams of Love might suggest common or garden folk club fare but we're talking one of the guys who set the benchmarks everyone else would be judged against. Needle of Death provides a blueprint for Neil Young’s Needle and the Damage Done and the basis for Ambulance Blues, a debt Young acknowledged by giving Bert the opening spot on his recent Twisted Road tour. Recommended if you've got an interest in the style and the starting point for what will be an extensive investigation of a substantial discography. $11.99 from iTunes.
Nick Lowe Labour of Lust (4.5*)
While the rest of the album doesn't quite measure up to the opening one two punch of Cruel To Be Kind and Crackin' Up, this very welcome reissue of Nick Lowe's second solo album is a timely reminder of just how good a band the Lowe and Dave Edmunds-fronted Rockpile was. His first album, Jesus of Cool carried the alternative title of Pure Pop for Now People, which mightn't quite be the case thirty-two years after the album's original release (after all, we're hardly Now People any more) but as an exercise in Pure Pop this one goes down just fine and will rapidly be making its way through Hughesy's numbered playlists. Won't be long till that opening salvo is in the upper reaches of Hughesy's Top 1500 Most Played.
National Health National Health and Of Queues and Cures (Both 4*)
The hit and miss factor of Hughesy's experience through the seventies comes back to haunt me. Given the intersection between National Health and the quite wonderful Hatfield & The North, I really should have picked up on these two albums well before the Radio New Zealand broadcasts that reminded me of their existence. Maybe there's not the same magic you'll find on the Hatfield & The North albums, but a plethora of quirky time signatures and intricate riffery probably explains the previous oversight. I suspect that, at the time, I was in thrall to the flavour of the month punk/ power pop (Elvis Costello et. al.) and let these two wonderful albums slip past unnoticed. Still, it's never too late to catch up.
North Mississippi Allstars Keys to the Kingdom (3.5*)
Given the genre (bar band southern rock or its cousin brother beer'n'boogie) you might suspect there are a couple of thousand outfits like the North Mississippi Allstars out working the clubs, bars and juke joints of the states below the Mason-Dixon line, but there won't be too many who can claim the links the NMAS have to key but largely sidelined figures in the field.
Guitarist Luther Dickinson and drummer, keyboards player and electric washboard(!) dude Cody Dickinson are the sons of Memphis musician and producer, Jim Dickinson who worked with Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Jim passed away two years ago and Keys to the Kingdom is, to all intents and purposes, a celebration of Dad's life and work. It's a genre that you'll probably either love or hate (no pretensions to virtuosity, but they can dig a groove with the best of them). The album's tidy enough as a genre exercise without aspiring to or reaching any significant heights in terms of innovation or virtuosity, bit those two elements don’t turn up too often in the genre, do they?
Hughesy's tip: Sample a couple of tracks and then click over to their cover of Dylan's Stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again which is one of the best things I've heard in a long time.
Edward O'Connell Our Little Secret (4*)
A reference on the Elvis Costello mailing list put me onto this classy little batch of power pop. It might be close to thirty years since the heyday of this sort of thing (I'm thinking Tom Petty and The Records as two fairly obvious operations out of the same ball park), but $9.99 from CD Baby will get you the MP3 version of this rather good album. Label Hughesy as impressed.
TP Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Cotonou Club (4*)
The process of discovering West African music goes one step further with this studio album, the first in twenty years, by TP (that's tout puissant or all powerful) Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou, who hail from Benin's largest city and seat of government. If your West African geography's not what it might be, the capital city's Porto Novo and you'll find Benin right on the western border of Nigeria. Dating back to the mid-sixties and boasting an extensive discography (over fifty albums and a hundred singles) there's plenty to investigate assuming that this effort, recorded in Paris on vintage analogue equipment, is the sort of thing that floats your boat. It's a lively affair, combining traditional elements, Afrobeat, jazz and funk influences. There's more than a touch of Voodoo lurking there and will undoubtedly be having an adverse effect on Hughesy's credit card balance over the next few months, a process that has already started with the 32-minute $8.99 1st Album.
John Renbourn Palermo Snow (4.5*)
It doesn’t snow all that often in Sicily, and you won’t find too many acoustic guitarists who ex-Pentangle maestro Renbourn. Some classical (Satie’s Sarabande, Bach's Cello Prelude in G), some Celtic, a dash of ragtime, a splash of blues in a rich blend of sonic elements. Highly recommended..
Scaffold At Abbey Road 1966 to 1971 (3.5*)
Coming out of a Liverpool arts lab, Scaffold found work around colleges, arts festivals but one suspects that the recorded output was aimed towards a mainstream audience rather than the fringes around the colleges and festivals and much of the material on At Abbey Road 1966 to 1971 would have worked pretty well in environments like TV variety shows. Alongside the familiar hit singles (Thank U Very Much, Lily the Pink and Do You Remember, catchy little lightweight ditties that were almost guaranteed radio airplay) there's a strong element of Gang Show (Gin Gan Goolie) and Rugby song (2 Day's Monday) in a collection that is rather light on for the pop poetry I was looking for. Still, at $10.99…
The Small Faces From the Beginning (3.5*)
While From the Beginning might have been an exercise in emptying the vaults and causing maximum disruption to rival product on the Immediate label it ain't too shabby. Admittedly I didn't really need the album, having already got the Decca hit singles (What'cha Gonna Do About It, Sha-La-La-La-Lee, Hey Girl, All Or Nothing and My Mind's Eye) on an earlier Faces compilation, but from the opening reworking of Del Shannon's Runaway it's a reasonably interesting collection, largely drawn from the band's stage repertoire over the preceding year or two.
There's material from both versions of the lineup, with keyboard duties attended to by former member Jimmy Winston (interesting take on the Marvin Gaye cover Baby, Don't You Do It with a Winston vocal) and his replacement Ian McLagan. Other covers include readings of Don Covay's Take This Hurt Off Me and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles' You've Really Got A Hold On Me that underline what a great R&B vocalist they had in Mr Marriott.
Other tracks, like My Way Of Giving (rushed out as a single by Decca while it was still at the demo stage, an act that was largely responsible for the move to Immediate) were more or less works in progress. Tell Me Have You Ever Seen Me may well have actually been finished, but was re-recorded for the new label) or demos for material handed over to other singers (My Way of Giving was done by Chris Farlowe and re-recorded for the new label). There's a Booker T & the MGs style instrumental (Plum Nellie), a couple of interesting bits of semi psychedelia (Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow and That Man) a handful of dance floor numbers and the reissue comes with around a half dozen alternative tracks and BBC recordings.
Taken all together, while it mightn't have quite been in the same league as the classic albums from 1967 (The Doors, Something Else By The Kinks, Pet Sounds or Disraeli Gears to name a couple of less obvious suspects from a very strong year) it's not that far behind. And, remember, it's the leftovers after a label switch. When you look at it in that light (not that the band wanted you to back then, going as far as discouraging the punters from investing in a copy in the advertising for the Immediate Small Faces) it, even at the time you could have done far worse... And for $10.07? For mine, a no-brainer!
Peter Stampfel Dook of the Beatniks (3.5*, possibly a 4 for those familiar with the Holy Modal Rounders)
Since there's no CD case with a digital version there's no space for an advisory sticker along the lines of Caution: Vocal eccentricities within. Then again, anyone familiar with Stampfel's feral yelp from his earlier days with the Holy Modal Rounders know what to expect in the vocal department. Those folks might, however, be unprepared for old style rock & roll, doo wop or Stampfel's off the wall lyrical take on themes from the fifties through to the present.
Dook isn't exactly a new album, having been recorded some ten years ago in New Orleans and while the title might have suggested an excursion into beat generation East Village folkie territory the album rocks a lot more than the average bear might have expected.
Tamikrest Toumastin / Adagh (4*)
It's not going to be everybody's cup of tea, particularly if you like to know what's going on lyrically, but the floating chants, loping rhythms and traditional desert elements filtered through electric instruments provide plenty of aural interest even when you're not sure what these Kel Tamashek (Tuareg) dudes are on about. Anyone familiar with the work of Tinariwen will have a fair idea of what to expect stylistically, though here there's a single singer and songwriter (Tinariwen have four).
Toots & The Maytals Flip & Twist (3.5*)
It's more than thirty-five years since I first heard Toots' joyful wail on The Harder They Come soundtrack and it's good to know that he's still going strong. While there's nothing here to match Sweet & Dandy's goodtime celebration, the relentless groove of Funky Kingston and Pressure Drop or the sheer off-the-wall brilliance of Take Me Home Country Roads I can’t think of anything from anywhere that does. You could cherry-pick the best bits from somewhere like Pressure Drop; The Definitive Collection ($29.99 from iTunes) which covers the decade up to 1974, but it's worth shelling out the $16.99 for the current incarnation.
Trombone Shorty Backatown (4.5*)
I was working away transferring data when a run through Backatown finished and crossfaded into Allen Toussaint without Hughesy noting the change. If you saw the recent Make It Funky New Orleans concert/doco on the ABC you'd have seen this dude wailing on trumpet and trombone, and would doubtless be wondering where the Shorty comes from. The explanation lies in a four-year-old marching in a street parade playing a trombone twice as long as he was, which also gives an idea of how firmly Troy Andrews is wedged into the musical culture of New Orleans' Tremé, allegedly the oldest black neighborhood in the U.S.A. That's not to suggest that we're talking hidebound tradition here. Apart from the cover of Allen Toussaint's classic On Your Way Down with Toussaint sitting in on piano, the album is comprised of originals with elements from all over the musical shop with elements drawn from rap, hip--hop, soul, funk and rock and filtered through a New Orleans sensibility. Definitely one to investigate.
The Uniques Absolutely Rock Steady (4* for Reggae fans, 3.5 otherwise)
Rocksteady and Ska, the Jamaican precursor to Reggae, never really got off the ground in Australia apart from the odd track like Desmond Dekker's The Israelites, but anyone with an interest in the harmonic territory covered by the Motown artists could find plenty to enjoy in this compilation of eighteen tracks from the mid- to late-sixties. Reputedly the island's premier singer of the era Slim Smith's high pitched vocal works the same lyrical territory as the Motown groups but there's an edge there that doesn't quite fit in the middle of the road, and personality issues cut short what could have been a substantial career once the world discovered Jamaican music in the mid-seventies. Smith, however, bled to death trying to break into his parents' house in 1973.
Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play the Blues (4*)
Given an extensive discography that varies between the sublime (the studio version of Cream, Layla) and the ridiculously naff (anything resembling Wonderful Tonight) my approach to a new Clapton recording invariably involves scrutiny of his collaborators on the project in question. Given the intersection of superstar guitar hero status and an inclination to veer straight into the worst excesses of the middle of the road (I mean, how else do you explain Wonderful Tonight?) Clapton's at his best when he has someone to spark off who'll also spark off him (a la Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhall on the mid-noughties world tour or the late great Duane Allman) rather than deferring to The Man Who Was Once God. If that sounds like a put down, I'd point out my Claptonic wish list includes something along the lines of the item under review involving gospel music and Robert Randolph and a recursion into Delaney Bonnie & Friends territory with the latter day reincarnation of DB & F (Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi and the rest of the Tedeschi Trucks Band). Wynton Marsalis and Eric Clapton Play the Blues (Live from Jazz At Lincoln Center), recorded at New York City’s premier jazz venue isn't quite up there but it ain't too shabby either. Assuming, that is, the listener shares Hughesy's affection for the music of New Orleans. If traditional jazz gives you the heebie jeebies this one ain't for you, folks.
For a start we've got a collection of material selected by Clapton and arranged by Marsalis, and given Marsalis sits very firmly in the traditional side of things we've got a very traditional sounding effort. That's not to suggest it's all traditional material. Howlin' Wolf's Forty-Four gets a guernsey, as does Layla, rearranged as a Crescent City dirge at the request of bassist,Carlos Henriquez. Taj Mahal drops by to contribute vocals to Just a Closer Walk With Thee and Corrine, Corrina and Clapton's happy to play rhythm rather than dominating the spotlight, though he does contribute most of the vocals.
We're looking at a lineup based on King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band plus two (Clapton's electric guitar and Chris Stainton's piano) playing material stretching from from the rumbunctious hokum of Ice Cream to the spiritual (Just A Closer Walk with Thee) with a variety of staging points in between, all of them rounded into a setlist that works very well as a whole. The trumpet shines throughout and the rest of the lineup isn't far off stellar in the style. Your mileage may vary, but this one sits somewhere between 4* Quality recording worth a serious listen and 3.5* Interesting but non-essential. Listening as I type I'm inclined to round it up rather than down.
Warren Zevon Mr Bad Example (4*)
I'd (honestly, no kidding) have been reviewing this a good twenty years ago had I known it was out there, and by the time I did, distribution was in the hands of a notoriously unreliable (or at least that was how it appeared from the Deep North) agency. Had that not been the case you'd probably have heard these tracks fairly regularly on Hughesy's radio shows a decade ago. Things have moved on since then, but this collection of early nineties material mightn't be tapping his glory years, but, hey, it's Warren Zevon, and while the arrangements mightn't be the best I've heard, the material isn't exactly duff, and, hey, it's Warren Zevon, who mightn't be Hughesy's favourite songwriter, but would definitely slot into the upper reaches of my top ten. A brief check, following a thread over on the Richard Thompson mailing list reveals four Zevon songs in the top twenty of Hughesy's 1500 Most Played songs on iTunes.
Not his best work, perhaps, but we're talking someone whose writing regularly worked the stratosphere, Highlights? The title track, Heartache Spoken Here, Searching For A Heart and Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead, most of which went into regular rotation through the man’s live sets (which says something in itself)…

