Record Reviews
📝 2096 reviews| Artist | Title | Review |
|---|---|---|
| Stefan Grossman | Play Fingerpicking Guitar | |
| Stefan Grossman | Fingerpicking Guitar | |
| Stefan Grossman | Ragtime Guitar | |
| Stefan Grossman | Country Blues Guitar | |
| Stefan Grossman | Some People Who Play Guitar/Country Blues | |
| Tommy Guerrero | Soul Food Taqueria | <p>Having long since abandoned the capricious punk of his Bones Brigade-era band, the skatepunk outfit Free Beer, Tommy Guerrero's kept busy by churning out records of pleasant, if not earth-shattering, mellow gold, and <i>Soul Food Taqueria</i> doesn't stray too far from the groove into which he's settled. For the hour duration of Soul Food Taqueria's mostly instrumental, sample-based, and Latin-tinged grooves, the only element that occasionally breaks up the very pleasant monotony of the tracks are the vocals. Lyrics Born, Gresham Taylor, and occasionally Guerrero himself all sing on the album, some to greater effect than others (e.g., Lyrics Born's "Gettin' It Together" is the standout track here, the sole hip-shaker among a gaggle of moodier pieces — the biggest inspiration for which seems to be the general street vibe of San Francisco's Mission district). And while Guerrero describes that scene pretty accurately with his music, on the whole Soul Food Taqueria fails to stick to the ribs because it simply lacks the proper spice.</p> — <b>Bryan Carroll</b> |
| Philippe Guidat | En regardant les nuages | |
| Arlo Guthrie | Running Down The Road | |
| Arlo Guthrie | Hobo's Lullabye | |
| Arlo Guthrie | Last Of The Brooklyn Cowboys | |
| Arlo Guthrie | Arlo Guthrie | |
| Woody Guthrie | Bonneville Dam | |
| Buddy Guy | Buddy And The Juniors | |
| Buddy Guy | The Last Time Around - Live At legends | <p>Last Time Around -- Live At Legends is a fitting farewell to the late, great Junior Wells and his partnership, friendship and kinship with Buddy Guy that lasted decades. The album is a historic release in many ways. It reunites two blues legends who began their unique association in the 1950s. The album was recorded live in March 1993 at Buddy Guy's world-famous Chicago blues mecca Legends, and it's an acoustic document of many classic songs that made both Wells and Guy legends in their own right, such as "She's Alright" and "I've Been There," along with other classic blues standards such as "Hoochie Coochie Man" and "Key to the Highway," all delivered with a looseness and power that define both Guy and Wells. It also marks the last time the two ever played together.</p>— <b>Matthew Greenwald</b> |
| Buddy Guy | Buddy's Baddest | <p>Buddy Guy revitalized his career when he signed with Silvertone Records in the early '90s. His first album for the label, Damn Right, I've Got the Blues, was a smash success, earning critical acclaim, awards, and sales hand over fist. Prior to that record, he was a legend only among blues fans; afterward, he was a star. Although it was a bit too rock-oriented and slick for purists, Damn Right was a terrific album, setting the pace not only for Guy but for modern electric blues in the '90s. As the decade wore on, Guy continued to make albums for Silvertone, some of them a little complacent, others quite excellent. Buddy's Baddest: The Best of Buddy Guy attempts to summarize those years in 14 songs, including three previously unreleased cuts. Not surprisingly, the compilers favor the Guy of Damn Right, featuring four songs from the record and three from its soundalike sequel, Feels Like Rain. Only two tracks from Slippin' In, his hardest blues record for the label, made the cut, while the fine live album Live! The Real Deal and the misguided Heavy Love are represented by a track apiece. In other words, a lot of good stuff remains on the original albums, which is doubly unfortunate since the three unreleased cuts are all throwaways. By relying so heavily on two records, Buddy's Baddest doesn't wind up being an accurate portrait of Guy's Silvertone recordings. That doesn't mean it's a bad listen, since the first ten songs are all very good and quite entertaining. However, anyone who has Damn Right but wants to dig deeper into Guy's Silvertone albums may prefer to pick up Feels Like Rain, which offers more of the same crossover Chicago blues, or Slippin' In, which is the real deal.</p>— <b>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</b> |
| Hamilton County | Kersbrook Cottage | |
| John Hammond | At The Crossroads | <p>If Robert Johnson could look down from heaven or up from hell, he'd likely find it very interesting that John Hammond, Jr. had covered his songs. Here is a white guy, after all, who sounds like a black blues singer and chooses -- of his own free will -- to frequently return to the repertoire of an obscure black guitarist/singer from the 1930s. At the Crossroads collects this musical meeting of the minds -- or souls -- by gathering 14 of Hammond's Johnson covers, recorded between 1965 and 1978. Like Johnson, Hammond relies mostly on solo acoustic guitar. In this way, it's easy to certify his versions of "Come on in My Kitchen" and "32-20 Blues" as the real deal, or, as a folk enthusiast would say, "authentic." At the same time, renditions of "Milkcow's Calf Blues" and "Stones in My Passway" are less raw and penetrating than Johnson's, and one could easily say that Hammond's real gift is that of a popularizer of rural acoustic blues. The last four cuts include full-band takes of "Sweet Home Chicago," "When You Got a Good Friend," "Judgment Day," and "Rambling Blues." While these cuts surely won't pass the purity test, they're nonetheless lots of fun. At the Crossroads is a cross-cultural, racial, and generational document, and offers a good one-stop look at one artist's nod toward another.</p>— <b>Ronnie D. Lankford Jr.</b> |
| John Hammond | Live | |
| John Hammond | In Your Arms Again | <p>John Hammond, Jr. fell in love with country blues in the early '60s, and he has never shaken it out of his system. Over time he has developed into a gritty guitar and harp player, and while his voice still feels like someone imitating a rustic Southern blues singer rather than actually being one (Hammond is a lifetime New Yorker, after all), he has learned to temper the hoarse overstatement in his vocals to some degree -- or maybe, after 40-plus years of albums, listeners have just gotten used to his delivery. In Your Arms Again finds Hammond working in a trio format with bassist Marty Ballou and drummer Stephen Hodges, and the result is a wonderfully loose, anxious, and ragged roadhouse sound that continually feels like it's going to steamroll right off a cliff -- which isn't a bad thing at all. Recorded in a converted church in Salina, KS, in just five days, In Your Arms Again includes the usual Hammond mix of old blues and R&B classics, including, this time around, two Ray Charles songs ("I've Got a Woman," "Fool for You"), three made famous by Howlin' Wolf ("I'm Leavin' You," "Moanin' for My Baby," and Willie Dixon's "Evil [Is Going On]"), a Jimmy Reed song (a sturdy, loping version of "You Got Me Crying"), and two of the album's highlights, a vicious take on John Lee Hooker's "Serve Me Right to Suffer" and a raggedly right shuffle try on Percy Mayfield's "My Baby's Gone." Hammond also contributes two of his own songs, the title track and "Come to Find Out," which are credible if unspectacular efforts. The best track here is arguably the opener, a delightfully loose and energetic romp through the traditional "Jitterbug Swing," drawn, it would appear, from Bukka White's 1940 version on OKeh Records. In the end, Hammond doesn't break any new ground on In Your Arms Again, but the stripped-down trio format he uses here gives the album a nice back-porch rustic stomp feel, and if he stills seems like more of an imitator than an interpreter, well, he's going to get folks moving and shaking with this little combo, and that, first and foremost, is what the blues is supposed to do. The rest is academic.</p>— <b>Steve Leggett</b> |
| Herbie Hancock | The Best Of Herbie Hancock |
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