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There are straight blues—‘Bottom Dollar Blues’—adventures in guitar playing and
arrangement like ‘One Hysterical Mosquito’ (shades of Joplin here) and even a ¾
time piece, ‘Gambler’s Waltz’.

All in all then, Dicky Setiawan is something very special and deserves to benefit from
exposure well beyond the confines of Jakarta. Let’s make it happen!

Ian K McKenzie

Bob Angell with Kelly Knapp—Brand New
Blues—Rawtone Records

Although I can’t find a reference now, in the last
couple of years I have read something somewhere
that declared the format ‘concept album’ dead and
gone. According to Wikipedia (List of Concept
Albums) there were some classics, ranging through
“Tommy” by The Who, to “Hotel California” by The
Eagles but no blues artists are in the list.

Using a definition culled from the web, a concept
album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which
can be instrumental, compositional, narrative,
lyrical." ("2PAC - Official Website". 2PAC. Retrieved February 23, 2025), so I suppose
that, using that rather loose definition, every blues album (and gospel album) is per
se, a concept album. Well IMHO, the key element in a concept album is the ‘unified
theme’, the idea(s) in an artist's head, that link the tracks on an album into a
comprehensive bundle that in itself conveys a message. This album meets that
criterion.

Bob Angell sees a connection between the blues and the church music, as do I, (which
is why I include blues and gospel music in my radio shows) and in an effort to clarify
his perception Bob had structured this album like a church service.

The seventeen tracks on the album MUST be taken in order. The raw almost raucous
start with ‘Good As I Been to You’, ‘Drinkin’ All Alone’ ‘Raw Guitar Blues’ (a duet by
Angell with Duke Robillard), ‘The Red Rooster’ and ‘Shake for Hubert’ a nod to Bob’s
mentor, Hubert Sumlin, start to shift to a recognition of spirituality and the divine
with a rendition of ‘Abide With Me’. Wonderful singing by Kelly Knapp with piano, (a
Salvation Army like) bass drum and harmonica by Brit, Mark Cole, who enhances
some other tracks too. ‘Trying to Keep The Lights [On]’ is a stomper with a solo by
Buddy Whittington.

‘National Blues’ (surprise, surprise) is a solo on a national steel, which reminds me
a lot of the recordings by Blind Willie Johnson. And so it goes—up to the closing tracks
which is an acappella version of John The Revelator, sounding like a church
congregation responding to the preacher. The final short track (11 seconds) is an
‘Amen’. How appropriate!

What great adventure this is. I love it. A blues concept album!

Ian K McKenzie