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You can clearly hear his influences – blues greats Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson – both in
his guitar playing and song writing but this isn’t just about recreating the past, in the title track
he sings about the shocking rise in ‘Asian hate’ during the Coronavirus Pandemic that he
personally experienced. The album is a combination of Nat’s own original songs and songs
written in collaboration with Dan and Pat McLaughlin and both men also play along with Nat,
as does bluesman Alvin Youngblood Hart. The closing track ‘Pray for Rain’ is a more
light-hearted, melodic track that reminded me of Woody Guthrie. I’ll be very interested to see
what Nat does next – if he carries on recreating the vintage blues sounds or if he goes down
the ‘Pray for Rain’ road of slightly more accessible material.

Graham Harrison

D.K. Harrell—The Right Man—Little Village

D.K. Harrell is 25 years old and says “I’m black, I’m young and the
music I like is blues, how much do you think I have in common
with people my age?!?” He comes from Ruston, Louisiana and
often has to drive up to five hours to find people to play with.
However, on this album he has the perfect players around him
and the perfect producer in Kid Andersen. D.K.’s guitar playing
sounds like B.B. King and he has a background of singing in a
church choir so his vocals are also strong and he wrote all the
eleven songs here. The album was recorded in Kid’s Greaseland
studio in California with a band of Kid (second guitar), Jim Pugh
(keyboards), Jerry Jemmott (bass) and Tony Coleman (drums) – Tony spent 30 years in B.B.
King’s band! There is also a six-piece brass section and four backup singers.

We start with the title track, a real hard-hitting B.B. King-style blues with riffing horns and
‘You’re a Queen’ is funky, with slightly embarrassing preachy lyrics - very much like Joe Tex.
‘Get These Blues Out of Me’ is a slow blues with strings and heartfelt singing, while ‘While I’m
Young’ is a charming shuffle with a more relaxed Sam Cooke-style vocal delivery. ‘Not Here
for A Long Time’ is a funk song split into two parts with Part 1 being played straight but Part
2 has shout-outs for the band and features solos for Tony Coleman, Kid Andersen, Jim Pugh
and Jerry Jemmott before D.K. himself plays us out. ‘Hello Trouble’ and ‘One for the Road’ are

more authentic B.B.-style blues but ‘Honey Ain’t So Sweet’ reminded me more of Albert King
with its more laid-back vocals and the Stax-style backing (even though Albert isn’t listed in
D.K.’s list of influences).

This is a very impressive debut album, partly due to Mr. Andersen’s production and the fine
band but also due to D.K.’s talent and firm vision of what he wants. He says “I miss the authentic
sound. Blues to me now is too rock-ish. I miss when the guitar wasn’t overpowered with gain
and distortion and bands had horns and every man shined on stage in a nice suit.”

You could say that this album is very derivative but D.K. is paying homage to his influences and
like many before him I’m sure he’ll go on to develop his own style in time, he’s already done
one of the hardest things in writing all his own original songs.

Graham Harrison