Albert Castiglia - Righteous Souls

Regular readers will know that now and then I look askance at albums stuffed with special guests, especially if they rely heavily on covers of blues classics.  Seems to me that all too often these are conceived of as a marketing wheeze, to drum up interest from fans of other artists. Happily though, this isn’t the case with Righteous Souls, the new album from Albert Castiglia, which features a bundle of his blues compadres.  This ain’t some two-bit, going-through-the-motions collection.
For one thing, the eleven tracks include four originals, ensuring there’s an authentic Castiglian flavour.  For another, the covers are (mostly) lesser known fare, so still fresh on the ear.  And between 'em they combine to deliver a tasty range of blues of different hues.
Taking those originals first then, ‘Centerline’ kicks things off in gritty, punchy fashion, with booming bass courtesy of Jerry Jemmott to go with shuffling drums from Derrick “D’Mar” Martin.

Albert Castiglia waits patiently for a crowd of special guests to get on the bus

Pic by Eduardo Whaite

Castiglia’s nagging vocal is complemented by loose-limbed backing from Lisa Andersen, and on the guest front Popa Chubby pops up to add extra fuel to our Albert’s own guitar fire.  And right from the off, kudos to producer/engineer Kid Andersen for the meaty sound.
Taking a different tack, ‘Mama, I Love You’ is a duet with Kevin Burt that takes a sombre look at the lot of black lives in modern America.  “Aint no sense, ain’t no reason,” says Castiglia, “For folks of colour, it’s open season.”  And he backs up his anger with a couple of scorching guitar solos, the second even more fiery than the first, which also serve to demonstrate that when it comes to epic picking he doesn’t need any assistance.
Penultimate track ‘No Tears Left To Cry' is a country-ish stroll with echoes of JJ Cale, with simple drums complemented by bobbling bass as the backing for a downbeat lyric.  “I don’t trust happiness, never have and never will,” sings Castiglia, while Gary Hoey chips in with – I’m guessing – the frequent injections of squeaking slide.
Only the chugalong ‘Till They Take It All Away’ falls a little short of AC’s best writing, and even then it has a bit of dig both musically and lyrically, as he complains about ordinary folk getting screwed over.  It comes with a fair smattering of wah-wah guitar, which I reckon is the contribution of Ally Venable, who has a penchant for the pedal.
Several of the covers lean in a Chicago blues direction, two of them penned by Castiglia’s erstwhile boss Junior Wells, naturally enough featuring harmonica contributions from Rick Estrin. ‘Come On In This House’ comes over like a slowed down take on Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Howlin’ For My Darlin’’, Estrin’s harp swelling and moaning alongside Castiglia’s emphatic, growlin’an’hootin’ vocal.  Jim Pugh adds chiming barroom piano, and Kid Anderson unpacks his twang to bring a different six-string flavour.  The closing ‘What My Mama Told Me’ is in a more rootin’, tootin’ Chicago vein, with squawling harp from Estrin, rasping vocals from Castiglia, and Monster Mike Welch contributing bouts of quivering, jangling, needle-sharp guitar.
‘Get Down To The Nitty Gritty’, written by Muddy Waters alumnus Luther ‘Snake’ Johnson, is good fun pure and simple – beer-hollering, hip-wiggling fun, with behind the beat drums, walking bass, and sparkling, scattergun guitar licks.  It’s certainly more of a novelty than ‘You Can’t Judge A Book By The Cover’.  Still, Rayne Castiglia duets nicely with her dad here, her easy-going drawl contrasting with his growl, and there’s some stinging guitar soloing too, though I’m not convinced fellow guest Christone “Kingfish” Ingram actually adds much to the equation.
ZZ Hill’s ‘You Were Wrong’ features some skedaddling sax work from Jimmy Carpenter, and a blistering organ solo from Pugh, over hyperactive bass and a jittery rhythm, but its fade-out ending suggests a slight lack of conviction.  That isn’t the case with Buddy Guy’s ‘The Dollar Done Fell’ though, a dark and moody funk outing with cavernous, twitchy bass and some slinky backing vocals from Ms Andersen, plus guitar exchanges between Castiglia and Josh Smith that start out nimble then get urgently conversational to reflect the cost of living crisis subject matter.
Which just leaves the distinctly Jimmy Buffet-like, Hispanic-tinged country-soul of ‘All Our Past Times’, on which Castiglia finds an excellent vocal foil in Danielle Nicole as they dramatize a couple turning around – maybe – a relationship that’s poised by the exit door.  Pugh adds swirling organ, and Joe Bonamassa drops by – of course he does – to add a second solo that’s good, but doesn’t necessarily add much to Castiglia’s own showing.
So yeah, Righteous Souls may have a couple of lesser moments, but it’s still a solid, stimulating outing. I'd go so far as to say it could even make the “special guests” concept respectable - maybe.
 
Righteous Souls is out now on Gulf Coast Records.

Big Harp George - Living In The City

Big Harp George.  The name conjures up some man-mountain, his voice growling and groaning the blues, then letting loose a hurricane howl with his harmonica as beads of sweat run down his face.
Well, not so much.  Big Harp George, alias George Bisharat, is a mucho dapper dude in his mid-sixties from San Francisco’s Bay Area, with a neat and sprightly voice to match.  Sure, he plays a harp, but of the chromatic variety that appeals to jazz players, rather than blues blasters embellishing tales of crime, misery and debauchery. On which songwriting note, it’s worth knowing that before he retired from the 9-to-5 our George’s gigs included defence attorney and

Sharp dressed man Big Harp George

Pic by Peggy De Rose

law professor, and he's as sharp with words as you might expect.
All of which is to the fore on opening track ‘Build Myself An App’, which bobs and bumps along in breezy fashion, hinting at New Orleans and laying a diverting foundation for George to share the thoughts of a wannabe app developer who doesn’t know his ROM from his RAM but still harbours hopes of a fast buck.  And his harp break has an airy, swinging tone that sits easily next to the following sax solo.
Other winners include 'Living In The City' itself, and ‘Copayment’.  The former is heralded by cool bass and snapping fingers, to which George adds harp that comes over like muted trumpet.  The verses paint a picture of the urban jungle over a swinging ‘Everybody Wants To Be A Cat’ vibe, and if the chorus is less interesting then George compensates with an appealing harp solo, high-pitched and playing around with the melody, augmented by a brittle, pinging guitar solo.  ‘Copayment’, meanwhile, is a stop-time riffing affair with more swinging horns, on which George gets all snarky as the ordinary Joe discovering the limitations of his medical insurance, leading to some witty dialogue and his final protest that “If I wasn’t sick when I came in here, I sure am now!”  And ‘Don’t Talk!’ is similarly amusing as a lawyer stresses to his client the risks of opening his mouth, over a twitching, pseudo-Latin beat, embroidered with some interesting musical stings and harmonica and trombone solos combining in short order.
Some songs, like ‘Try Nice’ and ‘First Class Muck Up’, suggest jump blues foundations.  But Bisharat often ranges more widely into swingin’ terrain, with the instrumental ‘Bayside Bounce’, for example, springing off from a phrase redolent of the old Benny Goodman standard ‘The Glory Of Love’, and other tunes deploying one Latin rhythm or another.  Which is all well and good, but he takes things too far with ‘Heading Out To Itaipu’, a song that both musically and lyrically references the ghastly ‘The Girl From Ipanema’. I hate ‘The Girl From Ipanema’ George – I hate it!
Down the stretch things get more interesting though, with the slow waltz of ‘Enrique’, piano-led backing underpinned by sparse bass and whispered drums for the crooned story of a troubled brother, and enhanced by melancholy fiddle solo.  ‘Pusher In A White Coat’ sidles in on a slinky opening before developing into a bitter condemnation of medics making money out of misery as they take “incentives” to peddle drugs, with Kid Andersen (who shares guitar duties with the late Little Charley Batey) adding a sharp, spiky guitar solo.  And the closing ‘Meet Me At The Fence’ is a plea for Palestinian dignity that jumbles up a Latin rhythm with Middle Eastern instrumentation. (Bisharat, who has Palestinian ancestry, is a well-known commentator on Middle Eastern law and politics.)
There are thirteen tracks on Living In The City, which is a few too many – and a few are overlong into the bargain.  But I like George’s style all the same, as he combines an acerbic take on everyday life with the swing-era feel of snazzy hotel dance floors.  His sweetly horn-like harmonica playing is impressive too.   All in all, Big Harp George may well be the classiest former criminal defence attorney on the bandstand.

Living In The City is available now on Blues Mountain Records

John Blues Boyd - What My Eyes Have Seen . . .

On one level What My Eyes Have Seen . . . is a tasteful, if pretty straightahead, electric blues album.  But on another, it’s something remarkable.  The difference lies in its sensitive presentation as John Blues Boyd’s memoir, folding together vignettes of both social commentary and personal reflections from a life that began in Mississippi in 1945.  As such, it’s also a sharp reminder that the blues isn’t just a musical genre, it’s an expression of the African-American experience.

There are ten actual songs on display here, separated by a succession of brief interludes.  These interludes blend a semi-spoken vocal with church-like organ, and together create a

The Singing Roofer has a moment of reflection

sense of Boyd sitting in his chair, eyes closed in a state of reverie, drifting into the memories encapsulated in the songs, which have been written by various combinations of Boyd, producer Kid Andersen, and songwriter and label boss Guy Hale.

The opening track ‘In My Blood’ sets out their musical stall, with a feel reminiscent of BB King, Andersen knocking out zinging guitar licks here and there, amid washes of organ and flares of sax.  Boyd, meanwhile, sings of having the blues in his blood in a resonant, authoritative voice – perhaps not superlative, but his excellent diction is a real asset in communicating his story.  The title track is slower and more soulful, with an unusual, pulsing and shifting rhythm and subtle sax underpinnings as Boyd starts to recall “oppression and injustice”, while Andersen chips in with another helping of excellent, expressive guitar.

‘I Heard The Blues’ recounts his discovery of the music over a halting riff led by Andersen, on Farfisa this time, while harp licks from Ryan Walker evoke the music that provided the epiphany.  But ‘Ran Out Of Town’ provides a sharp contrast to that happy moment, with Boyd’s voice carrying a darker tone as he recalls that “in 1963 I had to leave my home” because of his support for the Civil Rights movement, over a shuffling tempo and tooting organ and sax, to which Andersen adds a typically precise, stinging guitar solo.  In a similar vein, ‘Why Did You Take That Shot?’ recounts the shooting of Martin Luther King, with a reflective air redolent of picking up the news from a barroom TV, perhaps, all downbeat sax

The face of experience

remarks and a mixture of disbelief and resignation.

But then on a more domestic note, there’s the easy swing of ‘A Beautiful Woman (For Dona Mae)’, about Boyd’s love for his wife, and the later ‘Forty Nine Years’, a slow blues that contemplates the passing of “my woman and my best friend”, with rippling piano and guitar mingling with smoky saxophone.  It’s elegiac but accepting – because he still has the memories – embellished by a lovely piano from Jim Pugh and some low-end guitar from Andersen.

In between these two fall ‘California’ and ‘The Singing Roofer’.  The former is so jaunty it almost makes the sunshine audible as Boyd tells of moving west in 1978, while the latter is a jump blues full of swinging guitar and honking sax as he recalls that his day job is "doggone hard", but “when I start singing everybody shakes it loose”.

‘I Got To Leave My Mark’ summarises the motivating force for the album, with funky bass playing from Quantae Johnson and chiming piano from Pugh well to the fore, before a final interlude of ‘My Memory Takes Me There’ rounds things off in solemn fashion.

What My Eyes Have Seen . . . is John Blues Boyd’s story, and he tells it in clear, plain-spoken terms.  But Guy Hale and Kid Andersen deserve credit for their role as joint midwives, delivering these vignettes from the 75-year old’s life with both empathy and style, making these musical memories stand out from the crowd.

What My Eyes Have Seen . . . is released by Gulf Coast Records on 4 March.

Billy Price - Dog Eat Dog

Billy Price covers a few bases on Dog Eat Dog, its twelve tracks encompassing soulful blues, some different shades of funk, and ultimately Philly soul – all of which are delivered with top drawer musicianship, and channelled into an excellent sound by producer Kid Andersen, of Rick Estrin & The Nightcats fame.  And Price, a 2016 Blues Music Award winner, consistently delivers the goods vocally too.

The quality of his vocals is apparent right from the off on ‘Working On Your Chain Gang’ – relaxed and showing off characterful phrasing in a manner that recalls Delbert McLinton, underlined by some snazzy backing vox from the ‘Sons of Soul Revivers’.  With some

Billy Price - his voice is better than his jacket

Pic by Mark Simpson

rubber band bass twanging from Jerry Jemmott, a great rhythm, funky horns, and a zippy guitar solo from Andersen, it’s all enough to induce a soft shoe shuffle.

There’s a darker brand of funk on the title track, a Rick Estrin song that’s been given new lyrics to set out some despairing social commentary.  Estrin guests on harp, and the horns are restricted to some tenor sax remarks, as the patient delivery has the effect of slowly touring a decaying city.  ‘All Night Long Café’ is a slinkier affair, with a shout-it-out chorus from whoever happened to be around I guess, and a Mike Zito wah-wah solo.  It may seem simple and repetitive in form, but it works.

The pick of the soul blues bunch - and in fact of the album - is ‘Lose My Number’, on which Price and co pretty much out-Cray Robert Cray on a clever reflection about a femme fatale.  It’s laid back and measured, with a proverbially smoky sax solo and a neat descending Wurly piano motif courtesy of Jim Pugh, and Price captures the vibe perfectly with his vocal.  ‘Remnants’ is similarly blues-hued, with another witty lyric, this time about the tell-tale signs giving away a cheating partner, and shivering guitar backing.

There’s a different strain of blues on ‘My Love Will Never Die’, a Willie Dixon affair that’s given a reverb-heavy treatment, with twangy guitar from Anderson, dainty organ notes, and an aching vocal from Price, ultimately sounding like a replay of a lovelorn nightmare.

There’s a different kind of treat too, in the form of the finger-snapping ‘We’re In Love’, a cool but happy-go-lucky affair with sharp horn punctuation and an irresistible walking bass line to set toes tapping.

The back end of the album features some more Philly soul orientated songs, in the form of ‘Walk Back In’, ‘Same Old Heartaches’ and ‘More Than I Needed’, which aren’t really my bag, though it has to be acknowledged they’re well done.  More to my liking though is the closing ‘You Gotta Leave’, with its assertive lyric, stuttering offbeat rhythm, a jazzy Fender Rhodes piano solo from Pugh, and a jagged solo from Andersen that injects an edge the melody never quite acquires.

Dog Eat Dog shows off Billy Price’s mastery of soulful blues and funk, and if it tails off a bit towards the end – admittedly a matter of personal taste, in large measure – there are still a good half dozen tracks of real quality that are well worth getting your ears around.

Dog Eat Dog is out now on Gulf Coast Records.