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As I said at the beginning, this release is certainly very enjoyable.

Norman Darwen

(www.leveetown.com)

Lew Jetton & 61 South—Déjà Hoodoo—Endless Blues
Ljebr032022

The subtitle “1992 – 2022” indicates that this outfit has been
together for thirty years now, playing (and I quote), “dive
bars, juke joints, honky tonks (some with chicken-wire
around the stages), festivals, parties, tattoo conventions,

biker rallies, hoedowns, throwdowns and so on and so forth”.
This set draws together the most requested songs from the
band’s four albums along with new material, all recorded in
Paducah, Kentucky and remastered in Jackson, Tennessee.
They reveal a hard-working band more than adept in a wide
range of blues styles.

All the songs were written by singer/ guitarist Lew. If you want a straight blues groover, try
‘Betcha’, with fine harmonica playing by JD Wilkes, ‘I Been Cheated’, the album’s longest track
at five and a quarter minutes, or ‘State Line Blues’. For a Rolling Stones-ish styled item, go to
‘Mexico’. For a slow blues, then look no further than ‘Drinking Again’. ‘Move On, Yvonne’ is a
nicely rocking blues, and ‘Keeping Me Awake’ is a gritty slab of up tempo blues, whilst ‘Who’s
Texting You’ has tinges of soul-blues, a lengthy, fierce guitar break, and some clever lyrics.
Then there’s the closing gospel flavoured down-home sound of ‘Will I Go To Hell?’

Really though, all the tracks here—sixteen of them—stand up well. That makes this CD well
worth investigating.

Norman Darwen

(www.endlessblues.com)

Steven Troch Band—The Call—Independent

Steven Troch is a harmonica virtuoso, singer and bandleader
from Belgium who has laid down some excellent blues, and
he and his four-piece band are European Blues Challenge
finalists this year. This set, whilst largely remaining blues-
rooted, does tend to stretch outside the usual parameters of
the music however.

There is a reggae track here (‘Waiting’), a song, ‘On An
Island’, best described as “tropical” , country as on the closing
“Slowly Drive Away” with prominent pedal steel guitar, and