Gary Moore - How Blue Can You Get

How Blue Can You Get is about as good as it gets.  Set aside any fears that this posthumous Gary Moore release might be an incoherent batch of outtakes.  It’s the real McCoy.
This eight-track collection hangs together beautifully, split evenly between covers and originals but with Moore putting his stamp on everything in the breeziest fashion.
The opening take on Freddie King’s ‘I’m Tore Down’ sets the tone, with swinging drums, jogging bass and grooving organ creating a tight but relaxed vibe.  Moore’s vocal feels totally at home,

Gary Moore - bluesy from any angle

Pic by Jesse Wild

and if his first solo is on the money his second outing is even better, with a clear and biting tone as he goes to town without ever overdoing it.  There’s bags of tension and release, and as he raises the stakes towards the end the drums complement his moves to good effect.
The cover of Memphis Slim’s instrumental ‘Steppin’ Out’ that follows is spot on right from its staccato opening.  Moore’s playing around with the theme is fluid, and sets the scene for soloing that’s by turns witty, conversational, and then scorching, over more corking backing even if the organ feels a touch too high in the mix, competing with Moore at times rather than complementing him.
BB King’s 'How Blue Can You Get' is a classic slow blues that floats along beautifully, with patient bass and drums providing the foundation for slow, slow, quick-quick-slow Moore licks on the intro, before he brings the lyric to life with his vocal.  There’s a stop-time bridge, and then Moore embarks on the most tasteful of less-is-more solos, suspense colliding into fluttering quick passages.  Restraint isn't the word I’d most associate with Gary Moore, but his relaxed playing here is a model of it.
Of the four covers, Elmore James’ ‘Done Somebody Wrong’ feels most like a makeweight, but still hits the mark as a slice of straightforward blues in a ‘Who’s Been Talkin’’ vein.  It swings in lightly funky style, and Moore has fun on a squealing, high tension wire solo.
Of the four originals, three are slowish affairs.  ‘In My Dreams’ could be ‘Parisienne Walkways Mark 2’ with Moore’s use of heavy sustain, and a simple arrangement that privileges precision over fireworks, while Moore adds a good, suitably romantic vocal – in spite of his repeated, frankly preposterous, proncunciation of the word “night”.  ‘Love Can Make A Fool Of You’ is a soulful ballad, again kept simple, with vocals, lyric and guitar all working in harmony even as Moore ramps things up with a cracking solo to close.  And the closing ‘Living With The Blues’ is a romantically inclined slowie that nods towards ‘Still Got The Blues – a strong song, well-constructed, with a perfectly pitched vocal and guitar work that’s full of feeling.
Which just leaves ‘Looking At Your Picture’, which is perhaps the most interesting song here – even if it’s not the best – simply because it’s a little bit different.  It combines an unusual, shuffling rhythm with tense, prickly guitar and brooding bass, while Moore’s vocal is low-pitched and hushed.  Superficially a song about heartbreak – “I’m looking at your picture through my tear-filled eyes” – it conveys an unsettling sense that somebody might be about to come to harm, self-inflicted or otherwise.
These songs may have been captured at different times, but there’s a relaxed air about them all that’s warm and engaging.  Leisurely but never lazy, even when Moore is opening up the throttle there’s no sense of strain or going over the top.  How Blue Can You Get is the perfect reminder, ten years after his death, of just how good Gary Moore could be.

How Blue Can You Get is released on 30 April by Provogue Records.

Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking 2020 - Part 2

Still full of Christmas cheer, people?  Well, here’s Part 2 of the Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking to keep you smiling.
Now, you might think that live music is a curious choice for this piece to focus on, at the end of a year that was almost a total write-off for gigs from around mid-March.  But hey, there were a few live albums this year, from artists old and new, to remind us of the power of live music.
At the very top of the tree is Check Shirt Wizard – Live In ’77, by Rory Gallagher.  Released in March, I said in my review that I’d be dumbfounded if there was a better album this year, and I stand by that statement.  Check Shirt Wizard is a breath-taking document of what Rory brought to the stage back then – a four piece on full throttle, barnstorming, dynamic form, led by a man with a musical mojo of mythic proportions.  If you want to get in the mood, check out this footage of ‘Calling Card’, from a Hammersmith Odeon performance that year.

Another in concert collection from a late Irish legend arrived in January, with Gary Moore’s Live From London.  Recorded in 2009, it’s not without its flaws, but it’s still a testament to how rediscovering the blues back in 1990 brought a much stronger focus to Moore’s work.  Hard core fans will love the guitar pyrotechnics for which he always had a penchant, but for me it’s when he lays back a bit and captures the emotion in songs that he’s at his best, whether it’s the heartache of ‘Still Got The Blues’ or the humour of ‘Too Tired’.  Here he is having some fun with ‘Walking By Myself’, at the 2010  Montreux Jazz Festival.

A more contemporary live recording released this year came from Albert Castiglia, with Wild And Free, recorded in Boca Raton in November 2019.  Now Albert, like Gary Moore, is fond of letting it rip in the guitar stakes, and he certainly does that a few times in the course of this set.  But there’s light and shade in there too – as well as some special guests.  This performance of Johnny Winter’s ‘Too Much Seconal’, filmed in Poland a few weeks before the Boca Raton gig, is a pretty good illustration of the Castiglia style.

But lest anyone think that quality live albums are the sole preserve of guitar slingers, singer Sari Schorr chipped in with a goodie back in February in the form of Live In Europe.  At its best it serves up sassy, rockin’ blues with a dash of funk, decorated by quality guitar from Ash Wilson and keys from (depending on the cut) Bob Fridzema and Stevie Watts, as a platform for Schorr to do her forceful vocal stuff.  Here they are giving it some welly on the brooding 'Damn The Reason', back in 2018.

If there’s someone who really should have released a live album in 2020, to fill the void in touring work, it’s the woman who probably does around 200 gigs in the course of normal year – Samantha Fish.  Let’s face it, she and her management must have piled up some decent recordings of her incendiary live shows by now, and her fanbase have been drooling at the prospect for a good while now.  On the plus side, I did manage to catch a couple of British shows early in the year, including the London gig at Islington Assembly Hall, before she had to pull the plug on her European tour in mid-March.  Here she is in Denver back in February, having fun on ‘Bitch On The Run’, complete with compulsory singalong.

One of the few other bands I managed to catch before live music came to a crashing halt was Wille & The Bandits, in their new four-piece incarnation.  To my mind they're a band who deserve considerably more attention than they currently seem to get, as they manage to extend their blues foundations into prog rock terrain, with world music influences thrown into the mix for good measure.  To demonstrate my point, here they are with 12 minutes' worth of the epic instrumental 'Angel', from a 2020 performance in France.

I can't say I've devoted a lot of time to watching the streaming of live shows, though naturally quite a few artists have gone down this road in an effort to keep the home fires burning.  Sometimes that's just been a matter of timing - shows in the States often hit our screens in the middle of the night here in Europe.  But there's also the missing ingredient to contend with - the magic of simply being there, in the room when the music is being made, and being part of the interaction with the artist.  And with that in mind, let's hope this pandemic beats a retreat before too long, so that we can all get back to enjoying live music for real.

You can find Part 1 of the Blues Enthused Christmas Stocking here.

Gary Moore - Live From London

I daresay there will be lots of hard core Gary Moore fans salivating at the prospect of a firework display of axemanship from yer man, courtesy of this previously unreleased live recording from the Islington Academy in 2009.  Me?  What I want to hear is the kind of freewheeling ease and blues feeling that was evident on Moore’s first blues outing, Still Got The Blues – an album that was a real attention-grabber for me.  Suffice to say there’s enough happening on Live From London to satisfy both constituencies.

Gary Moore in characteristically chilled performing mode

Balance is the key.  There’s a cracking stretch in the second half of the set where Moore spreads out on Donny Hathaway’s soulful slowie ‘I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know’,
breezes through ‘Too Tired’, hits the bullseye with the restrained ‘Still Got The Blues’ (my all-time favourite GM track), and then coasts merrily through ‘Walking By Myself’, throughout all of which I’m a veritable happy bunny.

‘I Love You More . . .’ is a real highlight, as delicate as it gets, with long organ chords from Vic Martin providing the foundation for a vocal delivered with real feeling, and an excellent slow guitar solo.  ‘Still Got The Blues’ is even better in the slow blues stakes, with a great melody and a lovely guitar refrain, and ultimately a wonderful solo that communicates emotionally.  In between, ‘Too Tired’ is simply good fun, with bobbing bass from Peter Rees, and a playful guitar/organ passage (even if here, as in other places, Vic Martin’s organ sound is distractingly trebly to my ears), while they swagger along with the stop-time riff ‘Walking By Myself’, Martin adding piano on this occasion and Moore knocking out some of his best nimble-fingered fretwork.  All of this is a real purple patch, and the following ‘The Blues Is Alright’ ain’t too shabby either.

There’s a similar hot spell earlier in proceedings, even if it doesn’t quite reach these heights.  ‘Since I Met You Baby’ has a stop-start riff on the verses, and a swinging chorus, plus some scorching soloing from the main man – raw, varied, and high on entertainment value.  John Mayall’s ‘Have You Heard’ is a slowish affair that could do with more dynamics on the volume front, but features satisfyingly diverse guitar work – some typical breakneck licks to be sure, but also slow segments and long, sustained notes.  Then ‘All Your Love’, the Otis Rush classic captured by the Bluesbreakers on the Beano album, kicks off with a quiet, twinkling intro before Moore cranks out its distinctive riff and goes on to deliver it with admirable moments of subtlety.

Across the piece, right from the punchy opener ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ to the closing ‘Parisienne Walkways’, the rhythm section of Rees on bass and drummer Steve Dixon keep things rock solid.  And while that periodically plinky-plonk tone of Vic Martin’s keys may get on my wick, he still provides a suitable foil for Moore’s guitar, especially with the deeper, long chords on the likes of ‘Have You Heard’.

Personally I could live without ‘Parisienne Walkways’, a song I’ve always found overrated, but I guess that’s a minority view, and Moore certainly gives it some oomph with a big, dramatic solo.

When Gary Moore returned to his roots with Still Got The Blues it sounded to me like he’d finally found the key to the highway, after all his previous musical peregrinations.  Recorded 14 months before his untimely death, this performance shows that he could still wrangle a fretboard in the manner guitar freaks will adore.  But more importantly, the sound of Live From London is that of an artist who still knew just why he played the blues.

Live From London is released by Provogue Records on 31 January.