Author: Vincent Abbate

WoW #10: Doyle Bramhall II – “New Faith”

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Doyle Bramhall II – “New Faith”

When autumn comes, the days get gloomier, the rain starts falling, I get to needing music more than in the sun-blessed days of spring and summer. Music like Doyle Bramhall II’s Rich Man.

Rich Man was among my favorites records of 2016 and is definitely one that feeds the soul. Two songs stand out for me. “November” is a beautifully-rendered remembrance of times spent with his musician father, Doyle Bramhall, who I was lucky enough to interview a few years before he passed in 2011. “New Faith” – sung as a duet with Norah Jones on the album – is illuminated from within by humanity and hope.

Continue reading →

WIB Live: Josh Smith

Vincent Abbate 2 Comments

Lemonade

Josh Smith live @ Yard Club, Cologne, Germany

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

Some days you go to a concert. Other days, you really need to hear the blues.

This particular mid-November tick on the calendar put me through the wringer. It began with an unwanted call from my auto mechanic (“Your car’s not ready”) and found me filing a formal complaint and request for reimbursement at the local train station eight harrowing hours later. It was a traveler’s worst nightmare, like something out of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and though I didn’t flip out like Steve Martin at the car rental counter, my insides were churning.

When evening arrived, I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I should have been 150 kilometers away in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, taking care of important business. Instead, I was moping around at home. It felt as though life had handed me a whole sack full of lemons. There really was nothing left to do but lug that sack out to one of my favorite haunts, the Yard Club, hoping to turn them into lemonade.

That’s where the blues comes in.

Continue reading →

WoW #9: Doug MacLeod – “East Texas Sugar”

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Doug MacLeod – “East Texas Sugar”

Doug MacLeod, one of today’s foremost specialists for bottleneck blues and fingerstyle guitar, has displayed his mastery of the craft on literally dozens of worthy compositions during the past 30 some-odd years. On rare occasions, the New York-born, St. Louis-bred, Southern California-based singer and storyteller plays with a full band behind him. More often, he chooses the minimal backing of drums and bass or sometimes just bass. And then there are the times he’ll play all by his lonesome … and you can’t believe it’s only him you’re hearing.

Continue reading →

WIB Live: Jonny Lang

Vincent Abbate 1 Comment

Old, New, Borrowed & Blue

Jonny Lang live @ Gloria, Cologne, Germany

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

The next time I hear someone knock Jonny Lang for being not gritty or gutty or bluesy enough, I am going to whack him upside the head.

But maybe it would be smarter to send them to the nearest Jonny Lang concert, where the evidence will surely speak for itself – as it did on this colossally beautiful October evening in Cologne.

Continue reading →

WoW #8: JJ Grey & Mofro – “This River”

Vincent Abbate 18 Comments

JJ Grey & Mofro – “This River”

The river. It’s an often used symbol in rock’n’roll, blues, music in general. For a songwriter, the river’s mutability might suggest the fleetingness of life itself. But the river bank can also be a place of renewal, of baptism, of cleansing.

JJ Grey wrote “This River” after wandering down to the St. John’s River in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. The song closes the 2013 album of the same name, the sixth by Grey’s enduring southern soul, funk and blues project JJ Grey & Mofro.

Setting off with a lonesome acoustic guitar intro, carried along by a spare accompaniment of bass, drums and piano, with horns helping the song crescendo to a close, it is, above all, a showcase for Grey’s stark and powerful voice, which manages to communicate sorrow, remorse, resolve and contrition over the course of a gripping five-plus minutes.   Continue reading →

WIB Interview: Watermelon Slim (Pt. 2)

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Still Fierce and Free

An Interview with Watermelon Slim (Pt. 2)

Words by Vincent Abbate / Photos by Mike Latschislaw

(Click here for Part 1 of the interview.)

“Is any part of what you’re telling me off the record?”

I really had to ask, because Watermelon Slim wasn’t using a filter. He was sharing the most intimate details of his life – stuff you might tell your closest friend in confidence – though I’d never spoken with him before apart from a brief exchange at a blues festival ten years prior.

No. Every word of our interview was fit for print as far as Slim was concerned. When you have given up all hope of commercial success and accepted physical decline as a fact of life, you stop holding back.

“I’m an old man. I’m not in the greatest of health. I dance around it and put on a pretty good front, but…”

Continue reading →

WoW #7: Mike Zito (with Anders Osborne) – “I Was Drunk”

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Mike Zito (with Anders Osborne) – “I Was Drunk”

Mike Zito excels through honesty. Instead of trotting out worn clichés, with each new song he opens a window to his soul and allows us a glimpse of what’s going on inside. In his 46 years, Zito has been there and done that, and he wants to let us know what the experience was like, whether it was good, bad or ugly.

He’s been uniquely candid about the addiction issues that sabotaged his early efforts to make it professionally. In the past ten years, hopeful songs such as “Keep Coming Back” and “One Step At A Time” have appeared like signposts to mark his way along the recovery journey.

“I Was Drunk,” written together with Anders Osborne – a man who has dealt with similar problems – takes a darker tack in exploring the misery and self-destructiveness of alcoholism.

Continue reading →

WoW #6: Rob Tognoni – “Baby Please Don’t Go”

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Rob Tognoni – “Baby Please Don’t Go”

“Baby Please Don’t Go” needs little if any introduction. Most every music fan will have his or her favorite version of this oft-covered tune, originally popularized by Delta bluesman Big Joe Williams in 1935. For some, it will be the 1964 single by Them featuring a 19-year-old Van Morrison on vocals. Or the blistering take AC/DC included on their 1975 debut album High Voltage. Blues-minded folk can debate the merits of any number of versions, including those by Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Big Bill Broonzy, John Lee Hooker and Sam “Lightnin'” Hopkins. (The latter is the essence of cool on his version.)

For sheer firepower, look no further than Australian bluesrocker Rob Tognoni, who has been performing the song for as long as he can remember. It’s easy to decipher which of the above-mentioned versions of “Baby Please Don’t Go” inspired Tognoni’s razor-sharp, full tilt rendition.

Continue reading →

WoW #5: Lonnie Johnson (with Elmer Snowden) – “Memories Of You”

Vincent Abbate 1 Comment

Lonnie Johnson (with Elmer Snowden) – “Memories of You”

One afternoon in May of 2000, Grammy-winning author and record producer Chris Albertson welcomed me into his Upper West Side apartment in Manhattan. Then it was story time.

Chris spoke about discovering jazz as a teenager in Copenhagen in the 1940s and how he bluffed his way into a job for Danish radio. He talked about emigrating to the US in the mid-50s, his days as a DJ in Philadelphia and subsequent producing gig at Riverside Records. At the time of my visit, Chris was revising Bessie, his standard work on blues singer Bessie Smith, so there were plenty of Bessie stories, too. Indeed, it was Bessie’s voice that had originally called him to jazz and provided the spark for a life devoted to music.

But my real reason for wanting to meet Chris Albertson was because his name appears on the sleeve of one of my all-time favorite blues records: Blues & Ballads by Lonnie Johnson with Elmer Snowden.

Continue reading →

WoW #4: Adrian Byron Burns – “Massa John”

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Adrian Byron Burns – “Massa John”

Singer-songwriter Adrian Byron Burns speaks a variety of musical dialects. Blues, reggae, rock, bluegrass, jazz. A native of Arlington County, Virginia and a current resident of France, he’s been recording since the mid-70s. Burns has been a frequent collaborator of Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman in his Rhythm Kings project and is a respected guitarist and vocalist in his own right.

When I asked him about “Massa John,” a cut from his 1998 UK release Back To The Wood, Burns gave a surprising answer.

“The influence was Disney’s Song of the South, which, while a charming movie, is also extremely delusionary about slavery.”

Continue reading →