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Love. ‘Bout to Leave Home Girl’ is the old Earl Randle song (as covered by Bonnie Raitt), ‘Are
We Through?’ is a soul ballad and ‘How Long’ is another Memphis soul stomper with electric
piano and stabbing brass and Eddie taking a nice guitar solo.

‘It’s Going Down’ and ‘Trying to Get By’ are both a bit different – ‘It’s Going Down’ starts off almost

acoustic with a relaxed groove in the Van Morrison vein and ‘Trying to Get By’ is an original-
sounding mid-tempo soul song with great backing vocals over Fender Rhodes electric piano.
‘Down Along the Cove’ is the Dylan song with bluesy slide guitar and Eddie barking out the vocals
(it reminded me of Capricorn-associate Johnny Jenkins) and ‘Mary Don’t You Weep’ is the old
gospel song with backing vocalists Leah Bell Fraser and Chelsea Shag (sic) doing a great job on
the lead vocals. I really liked ‘Missouri’ a restrained mournful soul ballad with subdued backing
vocals and brass and ‘I’m lonely’ is smooth Philly soul. The band here includes Dusty McCook
and Cody Matlock (guitars), Chad Mason and Spencer Pope (keyboards), Wayne Kelly (bass),
Aaron Hambrick (drums) and Noah Sills, Justin Golding and Danial Wytanis (brass) with Eddie
handing lead vocals and guitar. I must admit I did miss the more bluesy sound and raw
excitement of the first two albums and although this does show Eddie’s versatility it’s an area
that seems to be already covered by Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed amongst others.

Graham Harrison

Teresa James—With a Little Help From Her Friends—Blue
Heart ASIN —B0BMB8CQDV

I once saw an act in a U.S. blues club that alternated classic blues
songs with classic Beatles’ songs – I didn’t think that it worked

and I was therefore sceptical of this album of Beatles’ covers by
Texas-born California-based soul/blues vocalist Teresa James.
Admittedly some Beatles’ songs are quite bluesy – for instance
‘Don’t Let Me Down’ as featured here with Teresa singing over

atmospheric Billy Preston-style keyboards but opener ‘Ticket to
Ride’ and George Harrison’s ‘Taxman’ also work well – partly
because of Teresa’s strong lead vocals but also because of the excellent band. They are Terry
Wilson (bass, guitars), Richard Millsap (drums). Kevin McKendree (keyboards) and Yates

McKendree (guitars and keyboards). ‘Happy Just to Dance with You’ from the ‘Hard Day’s Night’
LP gets a thoroughly convincing soul makeover, while the retro rocker ‘Oh Darling’ is refitted as
a blues with BB King-style lead guitar from Yates McKendree.

The formerly acoustic ballad ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ is also transformed into a
melodic soul ballad and ‘Everybody ’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey’ emerges

as a funk fest. The beautiful ‘You Won’t See Me’ and ‘No Reply’ are both done fairly straight (with
some nice restrained slide guitar on the former) and another George Harrison song ‘Think for
Yourself’ closes the album given a nice relaxed late-night blues treatment. After my initial
reservations about this album I was pleasantly surprised, the versions here all worked well,
everything is done with obvious respect and love making you realise just how good the original
songs were but also how good Teresa and the band are.

Graham Harrison