Page 58 - BiTS_05_MAY_2025

Brandon Santini—Which Way Do We Go—Mo-
Mojo Records

Brandon Santini was born in North Carolina but is
now based in Illinois. He has been playing the U.S.
blues circuit and beyond for nearly twenty years

now. During that time he has received many blues
award nominations including Blues Blast Music

Award for Contemporary Blues Album 2019.
“Which Way Do We Go” is his latest album release.

The album opens with the title track ‘Which Way Do

We Go’ a slow soulful blues with some gospel style handclaps in there too. ‘The War
Ain’t Over’ has that lo-fi style vocal over a distorted bassline underpinned with a
straight drumbeat. ‘See That Pony’ is a riff based blues and ‘Ain’t Turning Back’ has a
more laid back vibe to it.

‘Do What Comes Naturally’ features a nice guitar break from Timo Arthur followed
by some great guitar riffing from Jeff Jenson on ‘Mile After Mile’. There is a rock and
roll feel to ‘Working On A Mystery’ whilst ‘Trouble Stay Away’ is a straight forward

blues. ‘Blues So Bad’ really swings and there is a little Led Zeppelin guitar vibe going
on in ‘Baby’s Got Soul’ before the album closes with the upbeat blues rocker, ‘She Got

The Way’.

This is a fine blues album, well produced and with good instrumentation throughout.
The style and delivery of the songs brought to mind Wayne Baker Brooks. Brandon

has a great rich laid back vocal style that is easy on the ears and his harmonica
playing is first class throughout. Go give this a spin.

Ged Wilson

Bottleneck John—Road Worn—Bark Lake re-
cords

Bottleneck John is a blues singer, songwriter, guitar-
ist born and raised in Sweden. He has toured exten-
sively both solo and with bands throughout Europe

and the USA. “Road Worn” is his latest album release.

The album opens with ‘All Over Again’ a nice acous-
tic blues featuring some great Sugarcane Harris

style blues violin from Lars Astrand. ‘The Truth’
features a bit of everything with mandolin, banjo,
double bass, slide guitar and even kazoo! ‘I’ve Been

Told’ is a cool soulful piano-based blues whilst the slide blues ‘Anything Can Be’