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Jon Cleary—The Bywater Sessions —FHQ
Records ASIN : B0DYFD3YVX

The UK’s New Orleans exile Jon Cleary’s new album
features him with an eight-piece band rather than
his usual smaller unit and they really blast off with
opener ‘So Damn Good’ featuring as it does Jon’s
vocals and trademark NOLA-style piano playing -
“I feel so damn good I’ll be happy when I get the
blues”. The cheeky ‘Zulu Coconuts’ drops the pace
a bit “Take your dirty hands off my nuts…!” and
‘Fessa Longhair Boogaloo’ is a tribute to one of
Jon’s Crescent City piano heroes Professor Longhair
(with a sly reference to another hero Champion
Jack Dupree), while ‘Uptown Downtown’ is a tribute to New Orleans itself.

Jon’s expanded band are NOLA session musicians Xavier Lynn (guitar), Cornell
Williams (bass), A.J. Hall (drums), Pedro Segundo (percussion), Nigel Hall (B3
organ), Aaron Narcisse (alto saxophone), Jason Mingledorf (sax) and Charlie Halloran
(trombone) and the album was recorded at Jon’s home studio in the Bywater
district. ‘Just Kissed My Baby’ is The Meters classic delivered with funky electric
piano and clavinet and ‘Boneyard’ continues in the funk mode, while ‘Lottie Mo’
and ‘Pickle for a Tickle’ reference older styles of New Orleans’ music. Finally, Jon
revisits ‘Unnecessarily Mercenary’ his song recorded by Bonnie Raitt when Jon was
in her band and sounding fine with Jon’s own vocals and the added brass. Recording
in his home studio adds a relaxed atmosphere to this album, it's loose (you can
hear shouted asides all the way through!) but not sloppy - these are all great players
and the tone throughout is joyous with exemplary piano playing from Jon, an
Englishman in New Orleans!

Graham Harrison

Southern Avenue—Family—Alligator Records
ASIN :B0DWS71FGV

Southern Avenue are fronted by Memphis’s Jackson
sisters - Tierinii, Tikyra and Ava - plus Tierinii’s
Israeli-born husband Ori Naftaly on guitar and they
recorded this album at Memphis’s famous Royal
Studios. We kick off with ‘Long is the Road’ with
the three sisters’ delicious voices perfectly
intertwined and Ori adding a guitar solo on the
playout and ‘Upside’ is restrained funk with the
sisters’ melodic vocals reminding one of The Pointer
Sisters – “Every day’s a new day, find me on the
upside”. ‘Found a Friend in You’ sees the sisters
singing over Ori’s blues slide guitar – with the North Mississippi Allstars’ slide
guitarist Luther Dickinson on bass! – and ‘So Much Love’ is more laid-back funk
with Ori’s delicate guitar playing. The title track is one of three short tracks under
a minute, it has the sisters singing over Ori’s slide guitar, ‘Kept On Moving On’ is
similar and ‘Believe’ adds drums to the mix.