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also brings great variety and they mix their take on classic blues with funk and soul to make it
more appealing to a younger audience.

This is their fourth album and it blasts off with a rocker ‘Last Throw of the Dice’ featuring Tom’s
riffing harp and Marco’s vocals and keyboards, then we get a soul ballad ‘Leave It with You’
again with Marco fronting and with Tom’s screaming lead guitar. “Dozen Roses’ is a very catchy

song that could easily become a chart song – how many blues acts can you say that about? –
but ‘Ain’t Blue but I Sigh’ brings us back to the blues with unison riffing from Marco’s guitar
and Tom’s harp.

‘Prayer’ is a gospel chant with everyone joining in on the vocals and ‘Lucky Star’ is another

very catchy song, a soul stomper with stabbing brass and more massed vocals, while ‘Making
It Through the Night’ is a moody blues with Tom’s harp and a Tom Waits’ vibe. There’s more
straight blues on ‘Don’t Need No Favour’ a BB King-style song featuring Tom’s lead guitar and
we finish with ‘Fool’s Paradise’ (not the Charles Brown song) which again shows how the band
can come up with a song based in the blues but sounding contemporary. I’ve recently seen the

band live and they were truly excellent – I did wonder how they’d play a song like ‘Dozen Roses’
live but it was perfect – both musically and also they were very entertaining. I think that with
this band the future of blues is in good hands.

Graham Harrison

Seth James—Lesson—Qualified Records

This new album from big cowboy hat-wearing Texan blues

singer/guitarist Seth James is a tribute to fellow Texan Delbert
McClinton with all the songs being written by Delbert. The
album was produced by Kevin McKendree (who also plays
guitar, keyboards and percussion) and was recorded at The Rock
House, Franklin, Tennessee and in fact Seth is only credited as

singing, with Rob McNelley being the other guitarist. We begin
with a short poem ‘The Glamour of Life’ about life on the road
then it’s ‘Honky Tonkin’’ a typical Delbert song with the band,
complete with riffing brass, sounding great. ‘Who’s Foolin’ Who’ is more funky with backing

vocals from Alice Spencer and Nick Jay and ‘Maybe Someday Baby’ is an up tempo rocker with
rousing brass - Vinnie Ciesielski (trumpet), Jim Hoke (saxes) and John Hinchey (trombone).

‘The Rub’ is a downbeat stop-time story song, ‘Ruby Louise’ is a catchy piano-led rocker, while
‘B Movie Box Car Blues’ is about his sexual conquests while trying to get back to his woman

(?!?) and finally ‘Take It Easy’ is a slow, melodic ballad. Seth sings great throughout and the
band and the production are also first class. However, I’m afraid that I thought that the versions
here were just too respectful and too close to Mr McClinton’s originals.

I really enjoyed Seth’s last album ‘Different Hat’ and I was looking forward to hear what he did
next but I would have liked to have heard him do some radical interpretations of the songs
here but both his vocals and the arrangements were just too similar to Delbert’s.

Graham Harrison