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Red Red—The Alabama Kid—Naked (Broken Silence)
ASIN : B0CK161JTK
Red Red are an American/Belgian band comprising Tom
Beardslee (vocals, guitars), Steve Ceulemans (guitars, banjo,
backing vocals), Chris Forget (bass), Pieter Vandergooten
(drums) and DJ Courtasock aka Xavier Scheffers (turntables,
samples).
They work similar territory to Little Axe (remember
him/them?) mixing blues with rock and also rap/hip hop as in
the opening atmospheric track ‘Lay Me Down Marie’ where a
basic rock track is enlivened with added samples - as well as nice slide guitar. The powerful
title track is a tribute to black boxer Clarence Olin Reeves who was deported from Australia
in the 1940s, ‘The Spoon and the Flame’ is more acoustic and ‘I Got to Know’ features most
samples. This is quite an interesting album but for me it is a bit too much ROCK rather than
blues.
Graham Harrison
Various Artists—Warren Haynes Presents The Benefit
Concert Volume 20—Provogue
The first thing to say about this one is that you need to be
careful when ordering as there seem to be half a dozen differ-
ent formulations of the packaging: Not just vinyl (double vinyl)
versus CDs, but some with DVDs included and some, like the
one I am reviewing that are just three CDs.
Anyway, here we go with the three CD version. Wow! 31 tracks,
about 4 hours of music, recorded at the annual Christmas Jam
organised by Warren Haynes, held on December 7 and 8, 2018
in Asheville, North Carolina. Artist include; Dave Grohl, Eric Church, Joe Bonamassa, Jim
James, Gov’t Mule, Grace Potter, and Mike Gordon and many more and of course Warren
Haynes himself.
Some of the music is stunningly good, some of it is pretentious BS, too often present at
anything called ‘a jam’.
The good stuff is, however, stunningly good. I don’t have the space to deal with all the tracks
but my advice is to check out, ‘Gold Dust Woman’, originally by Fleetwood Mac, delivered
here by Warren Haynes and the outstanding Grace Potter. Joe Bonamassa sets the place on
fire with his rendition of ‘Spanish Boots’ and there is a nice version of ‘The Weight’ by
country singer Eric Church. (You can get to join the Church Choir!). On the other hand the
justification for the inclusion of a 35 minutes and 27 seconds long version of ‘Play’ by Dave
Grohl (of the Foo Fighters) leaves me cold. (You may find that others’ opinions differ).
So, like the famous ‘curate’s egg’ this, for me, is good in parts, but since you can get the three
CD version PLUS a blue-ray disc from AMAZON for £25, why not use that Christmas money
and find out?
Ian K McKenzie