The Music Spectrum 2004 Year-End Lists: Blues/Blues RockThe CDs That Didn’t Get Reviewed This Year

You can find the best-of year-end lists in most music publications. Rather than rehashing what was already reviewed and discussed this year, Music Spectrum is going deep into the stacks of CDs received this year to take a look at some of the ones that got missed.

Blues
Like a Smithsonian Folkways discovery from the dustbowl record bin in some abandoned general store of the South, John Agnello’s Baryon Records enters Michael Powers’ Onyx Root into the archives. Yet, the album is a new release this year, and Powers recorded the album in New York City. While Powers’ voice and guitars arrive 60 years late it seems, Steve Jordan (drums), Neil Jason (bass), and Jimi Zhivago (guitars/keys) bring today’s jamming possibilities to the project without trying to overshadow that timeless feel to these blues.


Featured Year-End Blues List Title
You can just hear the Blues ooze from David Jacob-Strain’s voice. You can find so many blues CDs that say on the cover something like, “The Real Blues.” Ocean or a Teardrop doesn’t say anything like that; the picture of David Jacobs-Strain on the cover doesn’t even really make him look like a blues musician. However, none of that matters. What you have in each of these songs is genuine—a full, deep, blues-etched voice; jangling, harmonizing, crying guitars. He’s in the Spectrum near Keb’ Mo’ for that voice and that ability to carry years of the Blues in his contemporary voice. “Take My Chances” rocks like a careening train towards a bridge that’s out. Having always loved Bruce Cockburn’s version of Blind Willie Johnson’s “Soul of a Man,” Jacobs-Strain jumps right up there with his swampy stomp through this spiritual crossroads. “Earthquake” brings in a South of the Border feel, exploring how the Blues transcends borders and finds equivalents in many cultures. Ocean or a Teardrop is released by NorthernBlues Music.

The opening track, “Winter Birds,” of Villanelle by Paul Reddick has a bluesy-romp, work song beginning, but the vocal sounds a lot like David Wilcox. Other tracks find Reddick in similar territory of Chris Smither, and that’s great territory to discover. The album, inspired by the work songs and pre-war blues, is an impressive collection of songs able to invoke times gone by, like dusty backroads and vacuum tube radio sets. Villanelle is released by NorthernBlues Music.

Grace of the Sun by Richie Havens is acoustic folk blues dipped in the 1960’s. His melodies are punctuated by eclectic percussion and his own percussive guitar strumming style. He lands near Taj Mahal, another blues explorer drenched in the 1960’s, but Havens often is reminiscent of the bluesy side of Gordon Lightfoot (American Folk), such as “Black Day in July.” Grace of the Sun is released by Stormy Forest.

We’ll give another little shout out to Taj Mahal here for leading the way in exploring the Blues through African, Caribbean, and other world beats. Such may have been part of the inspiration behind Dan Treanor and Frankie Lee’s project, African Wind. The album combines Frankie Lee’s stunning, soulful vocals with Treanor’s wide selection of African instruments. The Colorado Blues Society says the album has a “Mississippi hill country style,” which it does albeit with an incredible backdrop of flickering torches, tribal rhythms, African dances and drumbeats. African Wind is released by NorthernBlues Music, and the liner notes include some background information about some of the African instruments that Dan Treanor builds and uses.

Blues Rock
While there’s a country blues, stripped-down feel to many of these tracks, Janiva Magness is tapping into the full-throated Blues Rock found in the Spectrum around Janis Joplin, Susan Tedeschi, Tommy Castro, and John and His Sisters. At times on her album, Bury Him at the Crossroads, Magness sounds like a jazz songstress, a more traditional R&B diva, or a lonely blues singer huddled in the corner of bar, singing her heart out. Jeff Turmes (bass/guitar/sax/banjo) and Colin Linden (guitar/co-producer) turn in some fine originals which Magness breathes life into—life that is broken, weary, defiant, and hopeful. Bury Him at the Crossroads is released by NorthernBlues Music.

Thanks to all of the labels for the review copies.