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features him on guitar as well as keyboards and ‘Beware of the Wolf’ is an up-tempo
rocker warning of the dangers of the wolf (Donald Trump perhaps?) with harmonica
from John Sebastian. Jimmy is backed by Scott Healy (piano/accordion), Jesse
Williams (bass), Rich Pagano (drums) and Mark Teixeira (percussion).
‘Better Days Past’ is quite a poppy tune but ‘Fool’s Gold’ is a delicious slow blues
with Gary Moore-like lead guitar and one of my favourites ‘Crossed My Mind’ is
again very catchy blending blues and pop. ‘Going Down Fast’ (in contrast to the old
blues chestnut ‘Going Down Slow’!) is another catchy song, with accordion and is
again concerned with the state of the world, while ‘Shady Side of the Street’ has
Jimmy on piano and warning of dangerous neighbourhoods and we finish with a
nice semi-acoustic country blues ‘Back Up the Country’ with John Sebastian back on
harp. Jimmy is very talented and his singing and playing (guitars, piano and organ)
are all very good, as is his song writing – these are all original songs and as well as
standard-type blues songs I was impressed by some of his more accessible, com-
mercial-sounding songs.
Graham Harrison
Missy Sippy All Stars—Missy Sippy All Stars Vol
II—Sing My Title
Missy Sippy All Stars are a collective of up to 25
musicians from Belgium who have been going for
10 years and this is their second album, with each
track featuring a different artist out front.
‘Busy Bee’ is the opening track by Leander Vander-
eecken an easy rolling song featuring piano and
brass, there’s more nice piano on ‘Dimes for Nick-
els’ with Lajos Tauber up front and ‘Dark Clouds Coming’ is a moody track by Oliver
Vander Bauwede who plays jazzy chomatic harmonica. ‘Disease to Please’ is one of
the album’s most bluesy tracks featuring Matt T Mahoney and some big-toned harp,
‘Today I Sing the Blues’ is very jazzy with Nette Mortelmans evoking Billie Holiday
and ‘Mess Around’ by Tom Eylenbosch is the old Ray Charles song.
I liked Fedia Holail Mohamed’s ‘Don’t Know What It Is’ a cool, understated blues and
Leander Vandereecken and Oliver Vander Bauwede combine on the final jump blues
‘Coming in Hot’. This is an album with lots of variety of styles and also variety from
the different performers and while there are some good tracks here there are also
some fairly mediocre ones as well.
2Graham Harrison