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When I listen to a live album I like to get to feel what the actual show was like as if
I’m in the audience too. With this album you can really pick up the energy and
rawness from the ambience of the room with comments from the band, cheers from
the crowd and a great overall buzz.
The band do what they do best and play from the heart their style of good old
rhythm and blues, almost a throwback to the British blues boom era. Rather than
being metronomic as you might expect a rhythm section to be, Craig Shaw on bass
and Andy Hutt on drums have a more loose feel which really lends itself to this live
performance. Nick Scrase as well as lead vocals plays a mean rhythm guitar and
adds nice touches of lead here and there without overplaying. Eduardo Allen is a
real star in the band, as well as his stage presence he is an accomplished harmonica
player who really gives this band their signature style.
I’m sure this album will be enjoyed by all blues fans out there just like the crowd at
the Temperance so why not go and give it a spin. Then, go and catch these boys
live.You will be glad you did.
Ged Wilson
Blues People—The Skin I’m in—PWI Enter-
tainment
(www.bluespeoplenj.com)
This is a four-piece from the New York City/ North
Jersey area, all members come with bags of experience
in various music scenes, from Sue Foley, Michael Hill
and Joanne Shaw Taylor to David Sanborn and Lauryn
Hill. They have known each other a long time, and
bonded over the blues.
Their blues credentials are evident immediately. There
are shades of Albert King and Robert Cray on ‘Amnesia’,
with lead guitarist and vocalist Kelton Cooper in excellent form over the cushion of
(presumably) Ron Thompson on organ, Mike Griot on bass and Gene Lake drums.
The title track is up next, a funky blues with some pointed and all too relevant lyrics,
before ‘Hey Joe Revisited’ offers the listener a neat reworking of the classic – Joe is
here Joe Biden, I guess - with lyrics reflecting the state of race relations in the USA;
this is also of course the theme of the closing mid tempo blues, ‘Knee Off My Neck’,
a reference to the treatment meted out to George Floyd.
‘I Was Always There’ is a romping blues shuffle, ‘Troubled Times’ a very soulful
number, ‘Smoke And Mirrors’ a Hendrix-ish blues-rocker, and the seemingly
inconsequential ‘Nuthin’ Really’ has some fine jazzy modern guitar licks. Overall this
is an intriguing, direct modern blues set, not pulling any punches. It certainly
deserves to be heard widely.