Page 33 - BiTS_05_MAY_2020

Leif De Leeuw Band – Where We’re Heading (Continental
Europe CECD 85)

Track four, ‘Do Me Wrong’, a big, soul-tinged blues with a fine

vocal and plenty of twin guitar work – it sounds like The Allman
Brothers in their heyday, and you can be sure that’s deliberate as
this outfit is billed as “Europe’s best southern rock band” and they
even do an Allman Brothers show – though this is their own set
on this CD. The highly-regarded Leif De Leeuw is the main guitar
player and leader of this six-piece group with a big sound. ‘Funky

Gumbo’ is pretty much what it says on the tin, with those twin
guitars impressing mightily on this New Orleans tinged instrumental, and ‘Where I’m Heading’ is
also a strong blues-based number.

Other songs draw on country (try ‘Playing In A Band’), classic rock – take a listen to the organ sound
on ‘All You Do’ - or other roots musics, all filtered through that jam band/ southern rock mentality.

The closing ‘The Gipsy Flies’ is somewhat atypical, at least initially as it is quieter and jazz-tinged.
So, if you like the sounds of The Allmans or their various off-shoots, Derek & The Dominoes, Gov’t
Mule or The Tedeschi-Trucks Band, you’ll definitely go for this release.

Norman Darwen
(www.leifdeleeuw.com)

Eamonn McCormack – Storyteller (BEM SAOL 220)

That is a very apt title for this, the seventh album from this Irish
blues-rocker, the erstwhile Samuel Eddy. The opener is an account
of the Irish Potato Famine (known in Ireland as “The Great
Famine” or “The Great Hunger”) of the mid- nineteenth century,

musically combining folk music, rock and soaring blues-rock. The
following track, ‘Gypsy Woman’ (all tracks are originals, by the
way), is powerful blues-rock, and the stage is set for the rest of
the album. With the exception of ‘Every Note I Play’, which recalls
mid 70s mellow Eric Clapton, and maybe John Lennon too, this is

high-energy music for the most part, with Eamonn’s muscular vocals and highly accomplished guitar
playing right out front. Backing is courtesy of just bass and drums for the most part - Edgar Karg
and Max Jung-Poppe respectively - and occasionally the leader plays blues harmonica too, and
producer Arne Wiegand also supplies organ and piano.

At least some of the songs do seem to be autobiographical, with several drawing from Eamonn’s

time in the USA - this probably provided some inspiration for ‘Cowboy Blues’ and ‘South Dakota
Bound’, which I guess will go down extremely well at biker festivals. Expect to hear echoes of Johnny
Winter, Walter Trout and of course Rory Gallagher – Eamonn has played with all of them – but most
of all expect to hear powerful, impressive blues-rock.

Norman Darwen
(www.eamonnmccormack.net)