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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
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