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Kid Andersen/Lisa Andersen—Spirits and Soul—Little
Village
Norwegian-born Kid Andersen is now an integral part of the
Bay Area blues scene as a musician, studio owner and
producer and this new 2x CD set sees him fronting CD 1
‘Spirits’, while his wife Lisa ‘Little Baby’ takes CD 2 ‘Soul’. Kid’s
Greaseland Studio has made 150 albums in the last 15 years
and they use the musicians from those records – like Charlie
Musselwhite, Jim Pugh, James Harman, Little Charlie Baty,
Lucky Peterson etc.—to back them up here.

Kid kicks off with ‘The Civilised Life’ a moody atmospheric
original blues with great guitar and echoey harp. There’s a jazzy version of Blind Willie Johnson’s
‘Nobody’s Fault but Mine’ (one of two covers here) with brass and Lisa echoing Kid’s vocals.
‘Mr. Reaper’ is an original blues, while ‘Give Me the Road’ is a soul song that opens with blasting
brass and the title song is a Sly and the Family Stone-style funk fest with stabbing brass and Lisa
helping out on vocals. We’re back to the blues big style with ‘I Ain’t Right’ with its riffing brass
and the second cover is The Beatles’ ‘Day Tripper’ (really!) given a soul makeover with Sax
Gordon’s sax and the Sons of the Soul Revivers on backup vocals. Kid delivers excellent guitar
throughout and his production is very good and also very inventive and many of his original
songs show his quirky sense of humour.

Lisa featured in successful stints on US TV’s American Idol and also Showtime at the Apollo and
as you’d suspect from the title, her set is mainly soul, based around her versatile voice. Mighty
Mike Schermer’s ‘In My Mind’s Eye’ is melodic Philly-style soul and both ‘I Miss You’ and ‘I Won’t
Let That Happen to Me’ are in the same vein but ‘If You Could Only See’ is a beautiful melodic
country song written by Kid and with him helping out on vocals (lovely harp too). ‘Rock Bottom’
is a rocker by Elvin Bishop with Lisa belting out the lyrics and ‘Why Not Me’ is a torch song by
another Greaseland alumni John Nemeth, while Kid’s ‘Slipped Through My Fingers’ has Lisa
singing the blues. ‘You Met Your Match’ and ‘Free’ are both Stevie Wonder songs and we close
with the lovely sentimental acoustic song ‘Family’ with Lisa and her father singing over acoustic
guitar, double bass and strings. As I said, Lisa has a strong and versatile voice and Kid also shows
his versatility with the production on this varied collection of songs, with great playing from all
involved.

Graham Harrison

Albert King—Live in the 70s—Retroworld ASIN :
‎0D5KYTVMQ

This is a new vinyl release of a live CD originally issued in
2014 on RockBeat Records. However, that release had 12
tracks and a playing time of one hour 20 minutes rather than
just the six tracks here at half that time. The tracks were
recorded at three concerts between 1971 and 1974 and the
sound is OK – heavy on atmosphere rather than hi-fi quality.
It does contain some of Albert’s bangers - ‘Born Under a Bad
Sign’, ‘Oh Pretty Woman’ and ‘Crosscut Saw’ - as well as a
nine-minute instrumental ‘Blues Power’ and a ten-minute run
through the song ‘Personal Manager’. Albert was always my
favourite of the ‘3 Kings’ and he is in top form on this record,
both his singing and his guitar playing, and the band back him perfectly as hebplays through his
Stax repertoire, although the drums are quite forward in the mix.

Graham Harrison