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also features a female guest in young Ally Venable. Albert played in bluesman Junior Wells’
band and he includes two of his old boss’s songs ‘Come On In This House’ and ‘What My Mama
Told Me’ both featuring Rick Estrin on harp and with the latter also featuring Monster Mike
Welch on guitar. ‘You Were Wrong’ is Stax-style soul with Jimmy Carpenter on sax, ‘The Dollar
Done Fell’ is an old Buddy Guy song with Josh Smith on guitar and ‘No Tears Left to Cry’ is a
nice acoustic track with Gary Hoey on slide guitar. This is a really good album with lots of
variety from all the different guests but Albert himself isn’t over-shadowed as his own vocals
and guitar are prominent on every track.

Graham Harrison

Bywater Call—Shepherd —CRS—ASIN : B0D8LLDGWK

I guess if you were trying to describe Canadian band Bywater
Call’s music you’d say they sound a bit like the Tedeschi
Trucks Band in that founding member Meghan Parnell has a
dynamic blues voice and co-founder guitarist Dave Barnes
specialises in slide guitar. The rest of the band is John Kervin
(keyboards), Mike Meusel (bass), Bruce McCarthy (drums),
Stephen Dyte (trumpet) and Julian Nalli (tenor sax). This is
their third album and comprises all original songs with
‘Everybody Knows’ blasting us off with Barnes’ explosive
rhythm guitar and Meghan’s heartfelt throaty vocals. I wasn’t
as keen on the ballad ‘Colours’ but ‘Sweet Maria’ is lilting southern soul built on Kervin’s electric
piano and with Barnes’ slide guitar and the ensemble brass.

By contrast to what we’ve heard so far ‘Holler’ starts off with Meghan’s echoey vocals over
acoustic guitar with the rest of the band coming in later and the song building to a powerful
climax. The ballad ‘For All We Know’ also starts with a restrained acoustic section and although
the rest of the band do also come in eventually, it is a much more gradual build, while ‘Roll’ is

a beautiful song based on a lilting piano riff with the rest of the band adding arpeggios but
leaving lots of space for Meghan’s vocals. ‘Now and Never’ is funky with stabbing brass and
‘As If’ is also built on funky drums and bass, with more stabbing brass plus organ and electric
piano and on top of everything Meghan’s expressive vocals. The band sign off with ‘Sign of
Peace’ which takes us to New Orleans, a marching band rhythm with the brass (featuring
Christian Overton on trombone and Jay Burr on tuba) really cutting loose on top - then out of
nowhere comes real NOLA piano playing and we then double the pace to the rousing climax -
phew! Although Meghan out front with her outstanding voice is the obvious star here the band
also play their part in creating a very full-sounding backing for her to sing over, that sound is
rooted in the past but has a modern edge and songs like ‘Everybody Knows’, ‘Roll’ and ‘Sign of
Peace’ are really excellent pieces of work. The band are touring Britain in October definitely
one to go and see live!

Graham Harrison