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A track like ‘Running On Empty’ is part Led Zeppelin, part Free, and part Jack J
Hutchinson, part early 70s and part 2024. The rhythm section plays its part

extremely well too, with Billy Hammett’s drumming also big-sounding and bass
player (and guitarist) Josiah J Manning underpinning everything and keeping it all
grounded. The latter also co-wrote these ten songs with Jack. Note too that although

it is a massively catchy slab of blues-rock, you probably won’t hear ‘Don’t Let The
F*ckers Get You Down’ on the radio for obvious reasons… many of the songs on the
album are about dusting yourself off and starting again.

The album is rather more rock than blues maybe, but Jack certainly knows his stuff
(and his predecessors and peers). As long as you like it loud, and also have a taste
for those names mentioned earlier, chances are that you’ll go for this.

Norman Darwen

Michael Messer & Chaz Jankel—Mostly We Drive—
Knife Edge

(www.michaelmesser.co.uk)

Slide guitar maestro Michael Messer and multi-instru-

mentalist Chaz Jankel have been friends for over four
decades, though musically they went in different direc-
tions. Michael – here on vocals and various guitars –

ostensibly in a blues direction, albeit one that included a
lot of world music influences (he was in the past some-
times compared favourably to Ry Cooder) whilst Chaz was most notably guitarist

and keyboards player for new wave legends Ian Dury & The Blockheads. His
enthusiasm for the music of Sly & The Family Stone was the reason much of their
music has a strong funk feel.

Michael doesn’t really do straight blues covers, but listen to a track like ‘Slow Down

Billy’, an original with a relentless slide guitar driven groove with strong echoes of
vintage Bukka White. The title track has shades of blues, Hawaiian music, gospel
and country maybe, but stylistically the album ranges across to the mellow, almost
ambient instrumental of ‘Arcadia’, and the rap influenced recitation of ‘Music

Brings Us Close Together’. Michael finishes the set with a Robert Johnson-esque
‘Time Well Spent’, the most conventional blues number here.

Holding this all together throughout though is Michael’s slide guitar – and the blues
- and he is able to employ numerous approaches. Certainly, in Chaz, Michael Messer
seems to have found a very fine foil and a kindred spirit – this very pleasing release

works extremely well indeed.

Norman Darwen