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REVIEWS

Stratcat Willie & the Strays—Don’t Slow Down—
Independent (www.stratcatwillie.com)

New Yorker Willie “StratCat Willie” Hayes and his

Strays whip up a storm on the first few numbers of
this set, ensuring they got my full attention. The
opener, ‘Ain’t Got Nothin’’ is a fine vintage sounding
Texas/ California jump blues with some excellent

guitar – shades of “Gatemouth” Brown and Johnny
“Guitar” Watson. Next up, Willie moves on a couple

of decades with the blues-rock (and that is both
blues and rock) of ‘Demons Within’, before track
three delivers a solid slab of good old rock and roll with the original ‘Slow Down’.

He heeds the CD title’s advice too – the tempo might slow a little for the gritty,
down-home put-down of ‘Go On Home’ (but it is only a little), but it picks up again
with the monster sound of ‘No Pleasin’ You’. ‘Consuela’ is an energetic Latin-flavoured

garage-guitar instrumental, before ‘Ain’t Gonna Change’ slows the pace again for a
lazy-sounding shuffle with Willie’s warm laid-back vocal laying out his philosophy.

There is plenty of impressive slide guitar playing on ‘Rolling And Tumbling’, the set’s

only non-original, here given a fine pulsating treatment, ‘Don’t Let Him In’ has a
deliberate walking rhythm as befits this song about getting older, and ‘StratCat
Boogie’ brings the set to a rocking finale.

Willie’s been making music for nearly sixty years. His experience shows here, but
certainly not his age – he’s full of high energy, enthusiasm and blues creativity.

Norman Darwen

Tad Robinson—Soul in Blue—Delmark 887

The first time I heard Manhattan born-and-raised
Tad Robinson, I couldn’t believe how good his voice

is. He was tackling some vintage R’n’B and sounded
like an absolute natural – just like he does on ‘Keep
It In The Vault’, the opening number of this aptly-

titled album.

As I have mentioned before, Delmark is the premier
label for traditional-sounding blues these days, and

let’s stretch it a little for Tad’s R’n’B and soul
stylings. He sings the blues too, as ‘Out Of Sight And
Out Of Mind’ shows, though with a slightly more sophisticated touch than many

others. ‘Somewhere There’s A Train’ is one of those numbers that show the gospel