Stony Plain Records artist: Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne - Rollin' With The Blues Boss - New Release review

I just received the newest release (April 22, 2014), Rollin' With The Blues Boss, from Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne and its quite good. Opening with Leavin' In The Morning, opens the release with a R&B infused blues track and a fine guitar intro by Tom Lavin on guitar. Wayne on vocal, organ and piano gets the band hopping and Loren Etkin on drums and Russell Jackson on bass hold down the bottom. You Bring The Jungle Out Of Me has a bit more funk and Jerry Cook (sax) and Vince Mai (trumpet) add nice horn work on the track. Wayne takes a nice organ solo on this track topping it off. Hootenanny Boogie-Woogie has a bit of that New Orleans feel with the piano and funk along the lines of WW Washington with nice backing vocals from Christine Best. Roadrunner has that gospel like key work that has made Leon Russell so popular (with me anyway). A straight beat on drums by Etkin offsets that "Mad Dogs" sound keeping it straight in the R&B style. Baby, It Ain't You is one of my favorite tracks on the release ... right down the soul blues highway, it also features the best vocal work on the release. Sibel Thrasher, Cecile Larochelle and Christine Best add really nice backing vocals on this track. I Can't Believe It is a rumbling R&B style track with polished jazz like phrasing. Two Sides is another super track with with great piano work and a rockin' gospel boogie blues feel. Again harmonizing vocals add a key component to this track. Slow Down has a bit of a country ballad feel... say like Gregg Allman. Sherman Doucette adds some nice harp work to this track. Ogopogo Boogie has a real solid New Orleans piano boogie sound. Wayne and Mai (trumpet) lead the way on this hot instrumental. Excellent! Keep On Rockin' stays in that New Orleans feel and Wayne's hand for the New Orleans sound is super. With a blues/boogie feel, a rock beat and sax contributions from Drew Davies, this track is easily one of the hottest tracks on the release. Out Like A Bullet is a real classic style piano boogie and Wayne really hits a homer here. An excellent track to wrap up a really cool release.  

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 This track isn't from the new release but does demonstrate his sound:

It's Time to Get "Rollin' With the Blues Boss" on New CD from Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne, Coming April 22 on Stony Plain Records with Special Guests Eric Bibb and Diunna Greenleaf

It’s Time to Get Rollin’ With the Blues Boss on New CD from Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne, Coming April 22 on Stony Plain Records with

Special Guests Eric Bibb and Diunna Greenleaf

EDMONTON, AB – Stony Plain Records, Canada’s premier roots music label, announces an April 22 release date for Rollin’ With the Blues Boss, the new CD from keyboardist/singer extraordinaire Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne. Produced by Tom Lavin, Kenny’s new CD also features special guest appearances on one track each by Eric Bibb (vocals, acoustic guitar) and Diunna Greenleaf (vocals).

Kenny “Blues Boss” Wayne’s last album for Stony Plain, An Old Rock On a Roll (2011), garnered him a nomination for the Pinetop Perkins Piano Award from the Blues Foundation, as well as being awarded two 2012 Living Blues Awards, one for “Best New Contemporary Blues Recording of 2011” and one for Wayne as “Most Outstanding Musician (Keyboard).”

Wayne is a veteran blues and boogie piano player and also a three-time Juno Award nominee (Canada’s Grammy), including a win for his Let It Loose CD. His main influences are Fats Domino and Chuck Berry’s long-time piano player Johnnie Johnson, as well as Amos Milburn, Bill Doggett and Johnny Otis, king of the West Coast blues sound of the ‘50s.

He was raised in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New Orleans, but has been a long-time resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, where his new album was recorded. He is now living in beautiful Kelowna, British Columbia. A touring musician from his teens onward, Wayne settled in Vancouver some 30 years ago, but is rarely home — thanks to extended tours in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. His bass-heavy boogie piano work, as well as his original songs, makes for powerful live performances, enhanced by the flashy splendor of his boldly colored, French custom-tailored stage suits.

On Rollin’ With the Blues Boss, he flashes all of that and more on the album’s 11 all-original tracks, loaded with excursions into boogie-woogie, New Orleans-fueled R&B, blues, jazz and good-time rock ‘n roll. With Kenny Wayne, it’s all rolled up into one sartorially resplendent gem of-a-complete entertainer.

Of the new album’s many highlights, “Leavin’ In the Morning” kicks things off in fine style with a bouncy, bluesy riff that recalls B. B. King’s “Never Make Your Move Too Soon;” and “You Bring Out the Jungle In Me,” is aided by a punchy horn section that provides the same kick on several other songs. Blues Music Award-winner Diunna Greenleaf trades lead vocals with Wayne on the soul-blues ballad, “Baby, It Ain’t You;” and another BMA winner, Eric Bibb, supplies lead vocals and an acoustic guitar solo on the rollicking “Two Sides.” The jazzy-flavored “I Can’t Believe It” sounds like a song outtake from an old Bill Withers session; and “Ogopogo Boogie” is straight Crescent City N’awlins classic grooves from start to finish. The “Blues Boss” closes out the set in fine style as only he can, accompanied by just a drummer and pounding the 88s into submission on the instrumental, “Out Like a Bullet.”