The Courettes - The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes

Hey-ho, let’s go!  Where, you ask?  Back in time my friends, with the raucously retro sound of The Courettes, that’s where!
Danish-Brazilian couple Flavia and Martin Couri love the sounds of the Sixties, and they ain’t afraid to show it on their latest album The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes.  It’s an honest hommage, but they bring their own energy, slashes of darkness, and knowing nudge and wink to the songs and sounds that they generate.  It’s fun fun fun folks, it's mono 7 incher vibes to get your tush moving, and then you can catch all the clever musical allusions afterwards.
So whaddya get in this time travelling sound machine?
Whomping backbeats?  Check! Martin Couri whacks out plenty of these, starting with the

Martin and Flavia Couri - monochrome and marvellous

Pic by Soren Solkær

opening track ‘You Woo Me’, with its fairground organ, Flavia’s slinky vocal, and gloriously tumbling last line to its verses.  He goes all Spector with the rhythm on ‘Wall Of Pain’, which opens with dreamy, slurring string-like sounds then gets tied together by a bass/guitar line that owes quite a few bucks to The Four Tops’ ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ (aka ‘Sugar Pie Honey Bunch’).  There’s a fetching tambourine-led boom-cha-cha moment too, for extra entertainment.
You want a Wall Of Sound smacking you around the ears?  Goddamn it, you got it!  Have a listen to ‘Keep Dancing’, which wraps string sounds and twinkling guitar around another stomping beat, while they splash copious amounts of reverb everywhere.  The verses come with a sweet and yearning vocal from Flavia, but meld into a defiant chorus of “I’ll keep dancing on my own, I feel so much better now you’re dead and gone”, with a terrific hook, “hey hey” interjections from Martin, and reinforcements in the shape of tubular bells.  Yes, tubular bells!  And those chimes crop up on ‘Don’t Want You Back’ too, which opens with an echoing vocal over a throbbing beat and little else, till the chorus crashes in with a three chord descending riff.  There’s a catchy ooh-la-la doo-wopping segment too, and a catchy coda to boot.
You like a bit of cheesy girl group spoken narration?  There’s some of that on ‘Wall Of Pain’ too, and on ‘Boom Boom Boom’, a tribute to the charms of a drummer, featuring the lines “Charlie was my darling from Day One, When he’s sitting at this drums I’m under his thumb”.  Which means, as Flavia tells us in Shangri-Las mode, that some fella called Richard is getting his ring back.  The verses are very Shangri-Las Sixties pop too, simple and jangling, but the “My heart goes boom boom boom boom out of my chest” hook hints at less innocence.
And speaking of less innocent, they can crank things up into garage rock territory too.  ‘Here I Come’ is agitated and all action in a way that recalls Blondie – “I’m gonna git ya, git ya, git ya some day” sings Flavia – as they reached back for the rough and tumble of 60s stuff likes The Nerves’ ‘Hanging On The Telephone’.  Flavia’s guitar buzzes through the slam dunk riff to the punchy chorus, and she adds a razor-edged solo just to keep you on your toes.  ‘Better Without You’ is a breathless gallop too, that back beat kicking your ass while Ms Couri spits out a snarky lyric en route to the irresistible descending chorus.  It’s got a whiff of the Yardbirds in post-Clapton mode about, like ‘Heart Full Of Soul’ grabbed by the scruff of the neck and dragged onto a sweaty dance floor.
I could go on, and tell you about the snappy, hip-wiggling ‘SHAKE!’, or the Motown-ish ‘Stop! Doing That’, with its candy chorus, handclaps, and jangling Beach Boys guitar, or . . . ah, you get the picture.
The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes ain’t profound and it ain’t perfect. But it’s affectionate and smart and clever, and delivered with bratty chutzpah and exotic looking guitars.  Get it while it's hot!
 
The Soul Of . . . The Fabulous Courettes is out now on Damaged Goods Records, and can be ordered here.

Ronnie Baker Brooks - Blues In My DNA

Albums from Chicago bluesman Ronnie Baker Brooks don’t come along every year – his last release was 2017’s Times Have Changed, and a hell of lot of water has flowed under the world’s bridges since then.  This seems like a pity, because his personal mix of blues, funk and soul has strong roots, but isn’t stuck in the past.
Our Ronnie is, in case you didn’t know, the son of the late Chicago blues icon Lonnie Brooks, hence the title of Blues In My DNA. And Dad pops up in the brief snippet ‘Lonnie’s Blessing’, with the exhortation “Keep these blues alive!” ahead of the title track. ‘Blues In My DNA’ combines a cool, fuzzy riff with a dragging rhythm and reflective sprechgesang vocals from Brooks, as he lays out his inheritance.  It’s not just about his blues legacy from Lonnie, but the
broader story of a troubled neighbourhood, the struggles of his upbringing, and the way blues “the bad into a positive”.  And his gritty soloing captures the mood too, leaning into a few discordant notes along the way.

Ronnie Baker Brooks - the Chicago mojo still works

Pic by Jim Summeria

The most accessible track here is ‘Instant Gratification’, which opens with punchy chorus and a chunky riff that carries more than a hint of ‘Satisfaction’ and is ramped up later on. There’s stop-time riffing on the verses and plenty of guitar sizzle on a couple of solos.
But Baker also does a couple of soulful turns on ‘My Love Will Make You Do Right’ and ‘All True Man’.  His voice may not quite have a caramel sweetness on these, but it’s suitably light for the smooth Robert Cray-like stylings of the former, which may be a tad overlong but comes with a neat, melody-chasing solo.  ‘All True Man’ also has some seductive Cray leanings, but is a tougher funk strut with stinging guitar punctuation.  It’s brightened by piano embroidery around the margins from Rick Steff (as most of the tracks are), and features a piercing, clear-toned solo with distinct changes of pace.
Baker’s command of funkiness is also evident on the opener ‘I’m Feeling You’, with it’s brightly bouncing riff, pleasing melody and scattergun, zesty guitar licks.  There’s a slinky drop into a bass-led bridge, then with a grunted “Unhh” Baker sets off on a sharp guitar break. Then as the end approaches they punch up the backing to drive home an upbeat second solo.
Baker turns his hand to classic blues stylings too.  The slow and soulful ‘Accept My Love’ may not be anything exceptional, even if it’s nicely put together with its subtle backing that weaves in restrained moaning horns and strokes of Hammond organ.  But the slow blues of ‘Stuck On Stupid’ - an old cut he's chosen to reprise - is much stronger, opening with evocative lead guitar narration over ambling bass from Dave Smith and simple piano chords.  It’s about a guy trailing around after a woman who treats him like dirt, natch, and Baker captures the sense of resignation with a yearning vocal and a convincing, plaintive guitar soloing.
‘Robbing Peter To Pay Paul’ is a classic blues tale of being on your uppers, but it bumps along pleasingly, and Baker keeps the hoary old images fresh with a well delivered vocal interspersed with nippy guitar licks.  His nifty solo has a deft, light touch, and there’s a nice shift into a harmony-led conclusion.  And the closing ‘My Boo’ is a cheerful canter that takes a Wolf-ish, ‘Howlin’ For My Darlin’ type riff and lifts it into a sunnier, zippier mode, giving a fresh twist to a classic Chicago vibe.
Blues In My DNA isn’t a ground-breaking album.  But with a crystal clear production from Jim Gaines, it demonstrates that Ronnie Baker Brooks, with his effortless vocals and ability to make sparks fly from his fingertips, can continue to get the mojo working with traditional Chicago blues sounds.
 
Blues In My DNA is released on 11 October by Alligator Records.

JD Simo and Luther Dickinson - Do The Rump!

If your tastes are strictly of the blues-rock variety á la Bonamassa or Kenny Wayne Shepherd, or maybe straight up Chicago blues, then I suggest you look away now.  Do The Rump! ain’t that kinda thang.
What we have here is blues mavericks JD Simo and Luther Dickinson getting together with Simo’s drummer pal Adam Abarashoff to rehash a selection of deep blue classics in singular fashion.  Seems they basically chucked some appealing song titles in the air, found a groove or rhythm to start the engines, then riffed and wriggled around it on the fly while the tapes were rolling. The result is a magnetic, immersive journey to the centre of . . . somewhere pretty damn trippy.

Abarashoff, Simo & Dickens - as they don't call themselves

Pic by Zac Childs

To be fair, they ease you into it with the swampy strut of opening track ‘Street People’.  But by the denouement of the nearly 10-minute closer ‘Peaches’ they’re off the main drag into an Electric Ladyland of asymmetric, zig-zagging disassociation, for want of a better description.
‘Street People’ kicks off with buzzing guitar from Simo, followed by a slightly off-kilter rhythm from Abarashoff that Dickinson joins with some deliciously dirty, guttural bass to create a jagged, swampy groove. Simo’s slide guitar then slurs around an ear-catching line for a moment before his vocals make a drawling entrance.  Dickinson peels off into a different bass riff, over which Simo ducks and dives into a squawking, squeaking solo, and they’re off and running.
JJ Cale’s ‘Right Down There’ is also patient but buoyant, but with its repeated offbeat rhythm  low swooning guitar, and Simo groaning away at the simple lyric before adding a slinky, slithering slide break, it's a taken on Cale fit to give Clapton kittens.

From there on though, things start to follow a more trance-like path.  Dickinson takes over on lead guitar and vocals for ‘Lonesome Road’, calmly harmonising with himself while Simo’s bass bumps around deep below.  They surface on a lighter groove, Luther orbiting around it with a scratching, grinding, bleeping solo like a satellite transmission gone wonky.  Then ‘Come And Go With Me’ is their first outing in two-guitar-no-bass mode, the two guitars winding in and out of each other while Simo hollers the minimalist “Yeaahh, come on baby!” lyrics, the ghost of Hendrix flitting in and out of earshot here and there.
John Lee Hooker’s ‘Serves Me Right To Suffer’ opens with a stuttering rhythm and expressively plonking bass, while Simo’s guitar picks and pecks away like a bird chasing a worm.  Simo’s drawling vocal is very Hooker-like, but what really makes the track stand out is the way the guitar work mutates into sub-Saharan blues shapes, acquiring a sparkling, twinkling, twirling character over Abarashoff's relentless drum pattern.
The rhythm on ‘Do The Rump Louise’ is another wacko animal, like a three-legged horse trying to break into a trot.  A mash-up of Junior Kimbrough’s ‘Do The Rump’ and Simo channelling the lyrics of Fred McDowell’s ‘Louise’, it’s all stop-start stuttering guitars welded to a North Mississippi Hill Country groove, until Simo devolves into an impressionistic, volume knob-twiddling solo, followed by Dickinson embarking on another screeching, clanking excursion. ‘Come On’ follows, the only original fare on the album, and a perky little vignette spun off from ‘Come And Go With Me’ that's a palate cleanser before the climax of ‘Peaches’.
‘Peaches’ is an RL Burnside song that Dickinson and brother Cody tackled with North Mississippi Allstars on their album Up And Rolling.  That NMA reading was a bright and sassy duet between Dickinson and Shardé Thomas, but this is a not-quite-lazy, loping creature that sounds like a spliff was sparked in the break beforehand (and not the first one of these sessions, perhaps).  It's a low slung, two-guitar affair, with a nagging riff and drum pattern as backing for Dickinson’s languid vocal.  Then in their own good time the guitars start conversing, trading discordant flourishes and jazzy, flickering forays, before plunging into that final disintegrating coda.
There’s a sense in which a blow-by-blow account of proceedings like this is beside the point, of course.  Do The Rump! isn’t just a collection of songs.  It’s a spider’s web, spun out of country blues and more exotic ingredients, to capture the listener and cocoon them in the vibe.  Turn on and tune in, hipsters!
 
Do The Rump! is out now on Forty Below Records.