Page 58 - BiTS_12_DECEMBER_2024

dirty blues with Ian’s always fabulous vocals and Johnny’s authentic Chicago blues
harp powering the band along behind him.

Graham Harrison

Tony D—Electric Delta—Cordova Bay Records

Tony D (Diteodoro) is a Canadian singer/guitarist who
plays in the band MonkeyJunk and also as a sideman
with artists like Paul Reddick, David Gogo and Dutch
Mason and who is now releasing this his first solo
album since 2004’s ‘Jook Joint’. Backing him are his
MonkeyJunk band mates Steve Marriner (guitar,
harmonica) and Matt Sobb (drums) as well as Kim

Dunn (keyboards), Greg Fancy (bass) and Stacie Tabb
and Dana Wylie (vocals). ‘There’s a Chance’ gets us
going with slide guitar underpinning the vocals, ‘New
Attention’ has Tony singing in unison with the backing singers and there’s also
wah-wah slide guitar, while ‘Can’t Be Satisfied’ is a cracking version of the Muddy
Waters’ song with Marriner’s blues harp, Tony’s slide guitar and in the background
rolling electric piano. ‘I’m Gonna Shout’ is quite jazzy with Tony’s relaxed vocals

over his guitar and Dunn’s agile piano playing and on ‘NAS’ Dunn switches to organ
for a funky, swampy instrumental in the Booker T-style (nice drums too).

‘Modern Times’ and ‘Highway 7’ are both mid-tempo blues rockers and ‘Pueblo’ and
‘Kings’ are two more instrumentals – with the former being quite heavy and featuring
Dunn on organ while the latter is a tribute to the three blues guitar playing Kings –
Albert, BB and Freddie – (with Mr. Dunn on organ and piano) and Tony playing lovely
subtle lead guitar which tips the hat to his heroes without actually copying their

styles. ‘Josephine’ is an old skool rocker featuring Kim Dunn’s pounding piano
playing, including an unaccompanied solo in the middle where the tempo and
intensity doesn’t let up. I thought that this album was OK with good playing from
Tony and Kim Dunn but what let it down for me was the song writing – Muddy’s
‘Can’t Be Satisfied’ was easily the best thing here with many of the other songs being
pleasant enough but not really standing out and the inclusion of three instrumentals
(albeit all well-played) was also testament to the lack of song-writing ideas.

Graham Harrison

Various Artists—Better Than Jail—Wyatt Road

Records

This is a benefit album for the cause of prison reform
and features blues and Americana artists singing
classic blues and country songs about prison. We kick

off with the excellent War and Treaty and their moody
gospel version of Big Maceo’s ‘County Jail Blues’ and
this is followed by Steve Earl’s rocking version of
Sonny Curtis’s ‘I Fought the Law’. We then get Bonnie