What becomes apparent listening to This Is The Blues, Volume
3 and Volume 4, is that great blues players can exist,
play and howl at any age, sex or place in history. These collections feature
a wide swatch of players, styles and versions of classics, culled from the Pete
Brown-produced Clarksdale To Heaven: Remembering John Lee Hooker,
Nights of the Blues Table and Rattlesnake Guitar: Music
of Peter Green.
Volume 3 begins with Peter Green flat-pickin’ on “Crawlin’
King Snake.” The raucous “If You Be My Baby” follows with
Southside Johnny on harp plus Foghat’s late singer Lonesome Dave Peverett
on vocals and Rod Price on slide. There’s a real laconic (complete with
an almost out-of-tune piano) “Bad Like Jesse James” from LLC. Gary
Moore plays it slow and sad on “Serves Me Right To Suffer” (with
Jack Bruce), probably the best cut on this first half of the CD.
“Little Wheel” is shuck and jive fun with Gary Brooker singing
in a straightforward style that really serves his usually plaintive voice. His
piano playing is equally impressive as well. The surely missed champion Rory
Gallagher wails his way through “Showbiz Blues”, and we get the
sublime treat of original Jethro Tull guitarist Mick Abrahams playing “The
Same Way.” Other highlights include a country-flavored “Hellhound
On My Trail” from Uriah Heep’s multi -instrumentalist Ken Hensley
and Jeff Beck’s bending, pulling-off and funk-a-sizing of “Will
The Circling Be Unbroken.”
Volume 4 begins with the absolute brilliance of Mick Taylor’s
slide on “This Is Hip,” proving once again what an underrated guitarist
the former Stones guitarist is. This volume offers even a little more beef than
the third volume. We get Snowy White cutting some nice guitar, along John “Rabbit”
Bundrick stepping out from behind his keyboard rig with The Who to lay down
some of the tastiest organ this side of Emerson and Wakeman on “Looking
For Somebody.”
Big Jim Sullivan bends the hell out of his acoustic as Maggie Bell sings “Blind
Man” (just the two of them). Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson gives us
a sweet flute and piano on “Man Of The World” and Ray Gomez cooks,
grills and seers on “Lazy Poker Blues.” There’s an almost
Grateful Dead thing happening on Suzanne Sterling’s dirty “The Business,”
but “Drifting” by Top Topham (the first guitarist of The Yardbirds)
and Jim McCarty (the only drummer of the Yardbirds) comes along at just the
right time to remind us that this is a died-in-the-wool blues CD.
Kim Lembo’s amazing voice on “A Fool No More,” Georgia Fame’s
organ on “If You Live,” and some pretty acoustic by Miller Anderson
on the upside down “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” round the
proceedings out nicely. If you don’t have the original CDs these tunes
were culled from or want them on two blistering perfect collections (Volumes
1 and 2 are out there too), you’d be hard pressed
to find a better tribute to the blues than This Is The Blues,
Volume 3 and Volume 4.
~ Ralph Greco, Jr.
