John Mayall - The Sun Is Shining Down

“It’s been a long, long journey, and I ain’t got time to quit,” sings John Mayall on the title track of his new album.  Which seems like a pretty good summation of where this British stalwart of the blues is at nowadays.  His “epic road hog days” may be over, as he puts it, but The Sun Is Shining Down shows there’s recording life in the old dog yet.
Both the ideas and the delivery here brim with vitality.  The opening pair of tracks, ‘Hungry And Ready’ and ‘Can’t Take No More’, are in turns bright’n’bouncy, and swingin’n’snappy, with horns aplenty adding punch and colour.  Melvin Taylor does a zesty guitar turn on the former, while

John Mayall - still grooving after all these years

Pic by David Gomez

Marcus King guests on the latter with a sizzling solo, underpinned by some great bass playing from Greg Rzab to follow his nifty walking blues groove on the opener.  Mayall’s voice may be a tad more wizened than on his 2019 release Nobody Told Me, but hell, the guy’s 88-years old – and he’s still got the pipes to produce some fun harp breaks on ‘Hungry And Ready’.  There’s more vibrancy too with ‘Chills And Thrills’, on which Mayall’s regular guitarist Carolyn Wonderland supplies a booty-shaking riff as the foundation for Mayall to express – with good phrasing and feel - how he has the hots for a particular woman, and for Mike Campbell to add some squealing lead.
But there are also the twists that are thrown into the mix to keep things fresh.  Buddy Miller turns up to add baritone tremolo guitar (it sez here) to the palette on ‘I’m As Good As Gone’, over more ear-catching bass from Rzab, making a Bobby Rush song sound most unlike Bobby Rush, I imagine.  And violinist Scarlet Rivera turns up to give a different slant to both ‘Got To Find A Better Way’ and ‘Deep Blue Sea’.  On the former she slips and slides around gracefully over the offbeat, putter-pause rhythm from drummer Jay Davenport, while Mayall adds warm and subtle electric piano.  And while that’s a low-key tune, ‘Deep Blue Sea’ has a more upbeat, jazz-tinged vibe, with her fiddle providing different hues – part folkie, part jazzy – and an excellent solo interleaved with Mayall’s piano break, showing that she totally gets what the song needs.  On the other hand I’m not convinced that Jake Shimbakuro’s ukulele adds anything distinctive to the jump-bluesy ‘One Special Lady’ – largely because you would scarcely guess its pinging sound is a uke rather than a guitar.  That’s a relief to these ukulele-hating ears, mind you, even if Mayall’s Wurlitzer solo isn’t really to my taste either.
The slow blues of ‘A Quitter Never Wins’ is another matter though, with Mayall’s pensive, meditative harp to the fore right through to an impressive solo, while Wonderland complements washes of Hammond B3 with restrained, sensitive guitar fills.
Wonderland gets her own showcase on ‘The Sun Is Shining Down’ itself, a strolling, “life is good” reverie, laying down a conversational guitar commentary to match Mayall’s understated, swirling organ, over a lazy, easy-going groove from Davenport and Rzab.  Gotta say, while the guest guitar dudes might be good for marketing purposes, Wonderland has plenty enough quality in her own fingertips to merit a higher profile.
In fact the whole of Mayall’s core band deserve a heap of credit for making this album such an enjoyable listen, along with sympathetic production once again from Eric Corne.  The guest artists are really just icing on the ensemble cake.  But it’s John Mayall’s name that’s on the cake tin, and while The Sun Is Shining Down is no game-changer, it is still very much, as he sings on the title track, “not bad for some old Brit”.
 
The Sun Is Shining Down is released by Forty Below Records on 28 January.

Quickies - Jimmy Regal And The Royals, Elles Bailey, Wily Bo Walker, and John Mayall

Here's a chance to catch up with a clutch of recent releases in the EP and single domain.

Jimmy Regal And The Royals – Ain’t Done Yet
 
As Bertie Wooster might have put it, they interest me strangely, do Jimmy Regal And The Royals.  On one level there’s a sensibility to them that’s as British as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.  But as the five tracks on their Ain’t Done Yet EP demonstrate, their musical palette extends to more exotic influences.
This openness is most apparent on the tracks that bookend the EP, ‘Ain’t Done Yet’ itself and a radio edit of ‘Can’t Cry No More’, which appeared previously on their album Late Night Chicken.  

Jimmy Regal And The Royals - which one's Jimmy?

The former is built on twitching, pattering drums from Sammy Samuels, and sub-Saharan-tinged guitar lines from CJ Williams – and in due course a squeakin’n’scratchin’ solo - with honking sax from guest Chris Rand providing additional punctuation.  Meanwhile Joff Watkins gets to grips with a tongue-twisting vocal on the verses, and a simple but overly vibrato-prone chorus.  On the closing acoustic version of ‘Can’t Cry No More’ that African undertone is taken further and made more explicit, with more sparkling and shimmering guitar from Williams set to supple Kora rhythms courtesy of the guesting Diabel Cissokho.  Cissokho also adds some additional colour to the mantra-like vocal from Watkins, who earns his corn by adding further textures via moaning, gypsy jazz like harmonica work.
In between these two poles, ‘Mickey Two Suits’ – a title deserving of an award all on its won – is a blast of instrumental boogie on which Watkins’ harp lends an infusion of urgency to Williams’ chunka-chunka guitar.  ‘Way To Lose’ is a more downbeat affair, combining ripples of acoustic guitar, moans of nocturnal harmonica and minimalist, atmospheric persussion as the basis for Watkins’ groaned vocal.  And ‘Show Time’ is an intriguing affair, with Samuels’ patter-and-lurch rhythm matched to fuzzy splutters and splinters of guitar that occasionally get spiky in tandem with Watkins’ bursts of harp.  Meanwhile Watkins vocal may hint at a Brilleaux-esque growl, but this ain’t no Feelgood-like rock’n’roll, it’s a more idiosyncratic example of British blues.
All in all, Ain’t Done Yet confirms the impression that Jimmy Regal And The Royals may not be a big name in the making, but they are an outfit with something original to offer.
 
Ain’t Done Yet is out now, and available from Lunaria Records here.
 
 
Elles Bailey – ‘Stones’
 
The third single from Elles Bailey’s forthcoming album Shining In The Half Light rides in on a brooding slide riff from Joe Wilkins, grinding along in Resonator-like fashion over subtle, reined-in drums.  Then Bailey’s moody, assertive vocal swings into play, and Wilkins’ slide playing finds slithering groans and moans to harmonise with her on particular segments, while elsewhere some elegant vocal harmonies bring additional richness to Bailey’s delivery.  Wilkins then earns

Elles Bailey wonders where her hat has gone

Pic by Rob Blackham

extra bonus points with a slithering slide solo.  All in all ‘Stones’ makes a far more impressive impact than Bailey’s summer release ‘Cheats & Liars’.
 
Shining In The Half Light will be released by Outlaw Music on 25 February, and can be pre-ordered here.
 
 
Wily Bo Walker Acoustic Band – ‘Long Way To Heaven (Live)’
 
With which Wily Bo Walker, as is his wont, reworks a song from his back catalogue in a different style, this time taking a 90% acoustic approach to a song previously titled ‘The Ballad of Johnny And Louise’ when it appeared on the album The Roads We Ride recorded with compadre ED Brayshaw.  But while the instrumentation here may be different, there’s still a familiar cinematic tone to ‘Long Way To Heaven’, as a tale of the two characters out on the road in the American night.  Lyle Zimmerman adds twinkling mandolin to Walker’s familiar, Waits-like groan of a voice, while Gary Bridgewood contributes sweeps of elegiac fiddle.  Brayshaw meanwhile (whose latest solo album is reviewed here), is responsible for the non-acoustic dimension, adding harmonic electric guitar notes for colour, and a brief but typically edgy solo.
 
‘Long Way To Heaven (Live)’ is available now on Mescal Canyon Records.
 
 
John Mayall – ‘Can’t Take No More’
 
It’s remarkable to think that John Mayall is now 88-years old – the likes of Jagger and Richards are mere striplings by comparison – yet here he is gearing up to the release of his gazillionth album in the New Year, from which ‘Can’t Take No More’ is the second single.  And a sprightly affair it is too, even if Mayall’s vocal is, in all honesty, stronger on phrasing than melody.  Horns riff brightly, and Mayall’s organ tootles over a tripping, shuffling rhythm from Jay Davenport and funky bass from Greg Rzab.  Special guest Marcus King brings the guitar quotient, with an extended but relaxed solo, to which Mayall adds subtle remarks on organ, and there’s a spikier King outro to round things off.  ‘Can’t Take No More’ isn’t a humdinger of a track, but delivering something like this is still as easy as falling off a log for John Mayall.
 
John Mayall’s new album The Sun Is Shining Down is released by 40 Below Records on 28 January.
 

John Mayall - Nobody Told Me

For a bloke in his mid-eighties, John Mayall’s voice is very much in fine fettle.  We’re not talking about skyscraping singing of course, but for singing Chicago-type R’n’B, in the vein of Muddy, Wolf and B.B. King, he’s doing darned well.  Not in their league, to be fair, but still able to hit all the right notes, and deliver them with character.

Of course Nobody Told Me is being sold partly on the basis of the impressive parade of guest guitarists that Mayall has assembled, and we’ll get to them in due course.  But focusing on the guitar solos alone would short-change this collection, because it has some other stuff going for it.  For one thing, although the aforementioned R’n’B can be a pretty restrictive form, Mayall has managed to come up with enough subtle variations across ten tracks to keep the listener interested.  For another, his own harp and keyboard playing deserve attention. And it’s all well-captured by producer Eric Corne, well known as Walter Trout’s producer of choice.

There's a harmonica in there somewhere, John!

The seven covers, of varying vintages, range from Magic Sam’s warm and relaxed ‘What Have I Done Wrong’ and Little Milton’s swinging ‘That’s What Love Will Make You Do’, both punctuated by horns, to the more deliberate ‘Evil Here To Stay’ and reflective ‘The Hurt Inside’.  Meanwhile the three Mayall originals close out the album, including the jump blues-like ‘Like It Like You Do’ and the concluding slowie ‘Nobody Told Me’, the former a wry and sparky tribute to the archetypal woman of a bluesman’s dreams, the latter its world-weary and resigned my-baby-done-left-me counterpoint.

These two closing tracks are impressively decorated by the guitar work of Carolyn Wonderland, who I must confess is a new name to me.  But she makes an even more distinctive contribution to the cover of Joe Bonamassa’s ‘Distant Lonesome Train’, adding slithering, slicing slide guitar to its tugging, slow train rhythm, ahead of a ringing ending.  The result is a track that decisively shakes up the middle of the album.

Bonamassa himself features twice.  First there’s the opener ‘What Have I Done Wrong’, with a strolling guitar lick over bubbling bass from Greg Rzab, and a restrained solo adding to subdued organ. Then later he adds a stinging, well-constructed solo to the jaunty ‘Delta Hurricane’, penned by the Uptown Horns and once recorded by Larry McCray, with a probing bass line and organ solo from Mayall.

McCray, in turn, also gets a couple of outings.  ‘The Moon Is Full’, written by modern day artist Gwendolyn Collins, has a bright sound and a tumbling bass riff in the background.  McCray litters it with tasty fills, and on his second, closing solo goes into high-speed mode – though I’d question whether it adds much to the equation as Mayall’s lush organ solo.  And the same is true of Gary Moore’s ‘The Hurt Inside’, on which there’s a more-ish ascending lick at the heart of his first solo and pleasing bursts of conversational playing, but then a closing wah-wah solo that ultimately feels overcooked.

The other three guest appearances come courtesy of Alex Lifeson, Todd Rundgren, and Steve Van Zandt – none of them what you might regard as the usual suspects.

Lifeson, a veteran of 40 years in Rush, the master practitioners of proggy hard rock, seems like the least likely candidate.  But he does have a bit of form, bearing in mind their Feedback EP of covers, including ‘Crossroads’.  And here he adds a suitably spiky, lower register solo to the brooding ‘Evil Here To Stay’, twinned with a moody piano solo from Mayall – who also adds sporadic bursts of harp – over deep, fuzzy guitar chords. Might an Alex Lifeson Blues Band make for an intriguing post-Rush project?

On the easy-going ‘That’s What Love Will Make You Do’ a jangling, jagged guitar riff is juxtaposed with mellow organ from Mayall, supplemented by vibrant horns and a funky rhythm section courtesy of Rzab’s bass and Jay Davenport’s drums. And in the midst of it all Todd Rundgren’s solo transitions naturally from the riff to a variation on the melody and back again.

Van Zandt features on the first of the Mayall originals, ‘It’s So Tough’, a song that I’d guess he’d identify with lyrically.  Observing that we live in a time when “a crazy guy’s in charge,” Mayall uses a gently appealing melody to urge the listener to “Think more about your neighbour, ‘Cause now it’s up to you and me”, while Little Steven adds patient, shivering guitar to electric piano colouring.

Nobody Told Me is a grower of an album, coaxing you in bit by bit, and revealing more of itself on repeated listens.  It may not be wall to wall genius, but it still carries the torch with style.  Never mind all the guest stars, just lay back and enjoy the ride.

John Mayall is touring Europe in March and April 2019 - details here.