Silvertone/RCA Records artist: Buddy Guy - The Blues Is Alive And Well - New Release Review

I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, The Blues Is Alive and Well, from Buddy Guy and it's strong. Opening with A Few Good Years, Buddy Guy pleads in song for continued good years to remain but his vocals are smooth and his guitar as vibrant as ever. Joined by Tom Hambridge on drums, Rob McNelley on guitar, Kevin McKendree on B3 and Willie Weeks on bass, this hits home. Shuffle track, Guilty As Charged shows a strong romp attitude and you can see that gold tooth glistening as Buddy shouts out guilty and fans his guitar wildly in one of his frantic guitar explosions. Very nice. Cognac, is a real nice 12 bar number featuring not one but two legendary guest guitar players, Keith Richards and Jeff Beck who along with Guy give this track real teeth. Richards' riffs are always standout and Beck's style is remarkable and an absolute signature. Excellent! Title track, The Blues Is Alive And Well is a great R&B fused track with Weeks' instinctual bass work leading the way. Guys' vocals are rich and pure and the backing by the Muscle Shoals Horns (Charles Rose on trombone, Steve Herrman on trumpet, Doug Moffet on tenor sax and Jim Hoke on bari sax really add depth to Guys personal guitar style. Very solid. Soul ballad, Blue No More features James Bay and Guy trading vocal and guitar lead. Smooth as silk and blue as can be, this track is a great radio track. Digging in the funk, Whiskey For Sale shows a side you don't often see but a great side it is. With McNelley on slide, Guy tearing up the lead and the McCrary Sisters on backing vocals this track may be one of my favorites on the release. Slow blues, You Did The Crime is classic Buddy Guy with terrific vocals and guitar, fat slide from McNelley and Mick Jagger on harp. With that rumbling bass line that I like to think as classic Buddy, Old Fashioned, is a great track with Guy conjuring up the notorious Buddy Guy guitar tone and riffs. The Muscle Shoals horns really pump up the volume and McKendree's B3 fills out the sound. Excellent! When My Day Comes is still another great track with Buddy on full throttle with expressive vocals and lead vocal and tight pointed drumming by Hambridge. Sonny Boy Williamson's Nine Below Zero sits solid in the Chicago sound with classic lines and riffs. Guy grew up in this stuff and knows just how to dress it right. His soloing is fresh, expressive and meaningful. Excellent! Boogie track, Ooh Daddy is a hard driver with Weeks leading the way and Buddy shows nothing but vitality with youthful yelps and pounding riffs. Super. Wrapping the release is End Of The Line and Milking Muther For Ya. Guy does it big time smooth band with horns honking and great guitar tone. Continuing his theme of nearing the end of his time, Guy shows no signs here to slowing or losing his fine talents as some of his predecessors have done. He ties into this last track his little ditty that he often sings in concert about the girl who tries to milk the bull. I've seen Buddy many times and he's always a great performer. My hopes are that he still has many more years to come. Excellent release!

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Ruthie Foster 'Joy Comes Back' coming March 24th on Blue Corn Records

THREE-TIME GRAMMY NOMINEE RUTHIE FOSTER TRANSFORMS SORROW INTO CAREER-DEFINING SOUL/BLUES/GOSPEL/ROCK OPUS JOY COMES BACK, RELEASING MARCH 24 ON BLUE CORN MUSIC Derek Trucks, Willie Weeks, Joe Vitale, Warren Hood among guests on songs by Chris Stapleton, Mississippi John Hurt, Stevie Wonder and even Black Sabbath

AUSTIN, Texas — In the tightknit musical community of Austin, Texas, it’s tough to get away with posturing. You either bring it, or you don’t. If you do, word gets around. Praises are sung. And one day, you find yourself duetting with Bonnie Raitt, or standing onstage with the Allman Brothers at New York’s Beacon Theater and trading verses with Susan Tedeschi. You might even wind up getting nominated for a Best Blues Album Grammy — three times in a row. In addition to your six Female Artist of the Year/Koko Taylor Blues Music Awards.   There’s only one Austinite with that résumé: Ruthie Foster. And when she releases Joy Comes Back, her eighth Blue Corn Music album, on March 24, 2017, the Recording Academy might want to put its engraver on notice. Because every note on it confirms this truth: It’s Ruthie’s time.   When she recorded these songs, Foster wasn’t merely singing about love and loss; she was splitting a household and custody of her 5-year-old daughter. Music was her therapy.   In the warm confines of Austin producer and former neighbor Daniel Barrett’s studio, she found a comfort level she’d never before experienced while recording. It gave her the strength to pour the heartache of her family’s fracture and the cautious hope of new love into 10 incredible tracks, nine of which are by a diverse array of writers ranging from Mississippi John Hurt, Sean Staples and Grace Pettis (daughter of renowned folk singer Pierce Pettis), to Chris Stapleton and Black Sabbath. Yes, Black Sabbath: Foster reimagines “War Pigs” as a jam session with Son House. She also covers the Four Tops’ “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever,” written by Ivy Jo Hunter and Stevie Wonder.   And she makes each one hers, aided by some special guests. Tedeschi’s husband, Derek Trucks, drops slide guitar into the title tune; bassist Willie Weeks (Bowie, Clapton, George Harrison) plays on the Foster-penned “Open Sky”; and drumming legend Joe Vitale (Crosby, Stills & Nash; the Eagles) appears on several tracks. Grace Pettis adds guitar to “Working Woman” and vocals on “Good Sailor,” Pettis’ co-write with Haley Cole. Local hero Warren Hood (“Champ Hood’s boy,” as Foster calls him) lays fiddle and mandolin on Hurt’s bluegrass-tinted “Richland Woman Blues.” Barrett plays guitars, drums and percussion; other contributors include Brian Standefer, Eric Holden, Frank LoCrasto, Nicholas Ryland and Red Young, as well as the core members of Ruthie’s touring band, Samantha Banks and Larry Fulcher.     At one point, Barrett described the album to Hood as “some blues, some folk, some soul, some rock, some gospel.” Hood replied, “Sounds like Ruthie Foster music.”   Exactly. And “Ruthie Foster music” is an adventurous trip, harboring in places where stylistic limitations don’t exist and anything is worth trying. Which explains how she can turn even a song she was initially unsure about, “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever,” into a gospel-pop tour-de-force that could make Aretha Franklin jealous. “Once in a while I get a song I just resist, but I go ahead and start feeling what it feels like to sing it,” Foster explains. “That was one of those songs; it just felt good to sing.”   As for motivating herself in the studio if sparks don’t flash immediately, she says that’s been part of the job. “I go in, I’m prepared, I sing, and then I go home.” What she didn’t do in the past was hang out in the studio. Foster and Barrett had already spent many caffeine-fueled hours discussing music and life before recording; that continued as they worked — with occasional breaks to catch a loose neighborhood dog or entertain an ailing child. “Those small, real-life interruptions made it really nice for me,” she says. “They made it less like a job, which opened me up creatively.”   They weren’t even planning an album at first; they’d just decided to work up some songs, starting with “Forgiven,” by the Weepies’ Deb Talan. A gorgeous, majestic and moving ballad, it’s the perfectly placed final track. “This song said so much about what I was going through,” Foster says softly. “To have it be the catalyst for this album was a gift.” She cried during the playback — for the first time in her career.   That emotional nakedness is exactly what makes Joy Comes Back so extraordinary. On songs such as Pettis’ powerful “Good Sailor,” Foster, a Navy vet, plunged right into lines like I've been tossed around in the deepest blue/I almost drowned a time or two/But easy living never did me no favors/Smooth seas never made a good sailor.”   “It’s written so well, I was upset that I hadn’t written it myself,” Foster says, laughing. When Pettis heard the track, she told Foster, “It’s your song now.” Foster also claimed Pettis’ “Working Woman,” a rousing soul anthem of empowerment — and righteous anger.   She takes listeners to church on the gospel-soul title song, augmenting Staples’ lyrics with some of her own. When she told Barrett that in her childhood church, percussion was provided by the sisters’ tapping heels, he borrowed a neighbor’s high-heeled shoes and miked his well-aged oak floor. They banged away like kids.   “War Pigs” reminded Foster of nights spent servicing Naval helicopters with guys who liked their heavy metal cranked to 11. But her version, with spectral harmonica by Simon Wallace, Barrett’s Porterdavis bandmate, is more elemental.   “I wanted something unexpected that would be cool to do at festivals,” Foster says. “To get people out of their seats or tents to find out what the heck is that? Who is this little ol’ short black woman doing Black Sabbath on a resonator?”   On past albums, Foster says, “It was about being a professional singer, a hallelujah-chorus girl. But I’m a real person, and relaying that through this music and the stories behind it is really important to me. I haven’t written much because it’s been rough for me to put pen to paper, but Dan, having spent at least a year and a half being a listener and witness to my life, found these songs that have a lot to do with where I was and where I am — and who I am.”   For 2014’s Promise of a Brand New Day, producer Meshell Ndegeocello encouraged her to write originals. But a true artist can make any song his or her own, no matter who wrote it. And truly extraordinary artists do it so well that their version becomes definitive.   “Putting myself into another person’s words was huge for me,” Foster says. “I connect more to my voice these days than I do to anything. Even speaking — that was something my grandmother worked with me on, because I would stutter. It was a big deal for me to connect to words as a young kid. So I’m coming full circle.”   Adds Barrett, “It was one of the privileges of my artistic life, getting to watch an artist of her magnitude find her voice anew. You could drop her anywhere on earth and people would feel the truth in her voice.”   That truth? It sounds like Ruthie Foster music.