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rocking blues shuffle and 'That's All it Takes' is old skool Stax-style soul complete with riffing brass

and lush Hammond organ, with Christone testifying up front (one of my favourites).

'I Got To See You' is a rocker in the Chuck Berry tradition and then we slam on the brakes for 'Your
Time is Gonna Come' a delicious 5-minute slow blues with a howling guitar solo. 'That's What You
Do' is another 12-bar rocker while 'Something in the Dirt' is a lovely autobiographical track built on
rolling blues piano "There’s something in the dirt, and I’m trying to dig it out" and, surprisingly
given the title, the closer 'Rock and Roll' is a gentle acoustic song. When I reviewed his first album

which featured contributions from Buddy Guy, Keb' Mo' and Billy Branch I commented that really
Christone didn't need the star guests and I'm glad to see this album is just him - albeit with a great
band provided by Hambridge, with himself and Nick Goldston (drums), Bob Britt and Kenny
Greenberg (guitar) Marty Sammon (keyboards), Tommy MacDonald and Glenn Worf (bass), Max
Abrams (sax) and Julio Diaz (trumpet). I'm also glad that Christone hasn't given us more of the
same from his first album, he's kept some of the blues rock but has also expanded into more soul
and jazz idioms and also has made many of the lyrics very personal, if his first album was a real

surprise this one is a step up again.

Graham Harrison

Bernie Marsden—Kings—Conquest Music ASIN : B096TJQS5S

The idea for this album came from a 2018 conversation with ZZ
Tops' guitarist Billy Gibbons who commented that it would be
great if they could record the songs that they had grown up
listening to and had learned the guitar from. In Bernie's case this
was the 'Kings' of the title i.e. blues guitarists Albert, B.B. and
Freddie and he assembled a band of Bob Haddrell (keyboards),
John Gordon (bass) and Jim Russell (drums) to record the album
at a studio in Oxfordshire - the first in the 'Inspirations' series.

(The second album in the series will be entitled 'Chess' and is due
out later this year, it will be a tribute to the Chicago blues label.)

We begin with 'Don’t You Lie To Me' the old Tampa Red song that's been recorded by many
bluesmen but here done in the Albert King style, while another blues chestnut (classic) 'Key to the
Highway' is done a la Freddie King, as is the following slow blues 'Help Me Through The Day' as
well as 'Woman Across the River'. We then switch to Albert King's 'I’ll Play The Blues For You' done

in restrained manner, Bernie singing that he's playing on his "gold (Les Paul) guitar" and with
'Help the Poor' we are introduced to B.B. King. On all these tracks Bernie stays true to the original
versions BUT still manages to put his own spin on the songs doing them at a slightly different
tempo or with a different emphasis and the fact that Bernie had a cut down band also adds a
different sound and on Freddie's 'Me And My Guitar' Bernie and the band really rock it up, with
Bernie delivering a blistering solo.

Three more Freddie King tracks follow the rocky 'Living On The Highway', the delicious 'You’ve Got
To Love Her With A Feeling' and 'Same Old Blues' where Bernie and the band really capture the
Freddie King sound. The album finishes with two rocking original instrumentals by Bernie,
'Runaway' and 'Uptown Train', delivered in the Freddie King-style of tunes like 'Hideaway'. It's
good to see Bernie paying tribute to his influences and he definitely has the chops to do it - as
evidenced by current guitar Gods like Billy Gibbons and Joe Bonamassa wanting to play with him -