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Amaury Faivre—My Americana—Amaury Faivre
Amaury Faivre is a harmonica player, guitarist and singer, and

above all an acoustic blues artist. He boasts a 25 year career,
and has appeared on more than 1000 stages on 3 continents
and a dozen countries. Here he is accompanied by drummer-
percussionist Julien Compagne and by Jean Rigo on double
bass. This is the brand new Amaury Faivre Trio.

The music celebrates a trip Amaury made to the USA from his
home in France.

The opener ‘Tumbleweed’ is a gentle reflective piece with
some nice harp work from Amaury who also carries the vocal and the gutar part. A terrific song
well worthy of a wide audience. ‘Am I Wrong’ with some excellent slide work by Amaury, is a
cover of a song by Keb' Mo'. Mo’ outstanding drumming here. Julien Compagne is a keeper.
Cracking stuff!,

I for one would love to see M. Faivre in a live performance. I bet he puts on a blistering show.
In the mean time I shall have this excellent and wonderfully played and produced album to
stimulate the imagining of the live event!

Ian K McKenzie

Ronnie Baker Brooks—Blues In My DNA—Alligator
Records ALCD 5023

Ronnie is the son of Lonnie Brooks so that’s the reference to
DNA. “I ain’t complaining,” he sings, “I’m just explaining,”
before declaring, “I got love in my blood, the blues in my DNA.”

This s Ronnie’s first album for Alligator, and a stomper it is
too. Twelve tracks (one of them is an endorsement from the
late Lonnie) so really eleven, and Ronnie cuts a fine groove
across them all.

Dad Lonnie was (IMHO) principally a rock ‘n’ roller, Ronnie
does not eschew that style but adds to it, bringing some outstanding guitar work to the table
and some blues-rock sensibility to the mixing pot too.

Let me commend two tracks to you (although I could commend them all). Check out ‘Stuck on
Stupid’ which comes with some searing Chi-City axe work and eight minutes and ten seconds of
‘declaration’ blues, the like of which I haven’t heard in many a year.

Check out too ‘Robbing Peter To Pay Paul’, a fabulous 1-4-5 blues with a throbbing beat and
fiery guitar. One for the real blues fan especially if you like your guitar with a heavy top-end.

Ian K McKenzie