tab benoit

Bluesman Benoit teams up again with Lousiana's LeRoux, the rockin' outfit he worked with on his swamp-lightnin' album Brother to the Blues of last year which was nominated for a Grammy. This is more of the same, but better: Benoit's guitar has a sharp and stinging quality, he digs into some Cajun-flavoured blues, and on the title track...
> music/1235/tab-benoit-power-of-the-pontchartrain-elite/

After four decades as a troubadour, Andersen has finally got round to recording a live album -- but he has done it with typically wilfulness: he hooked up with a Norwegian blues band and recorded it in a rock club in Oslo. But this is no foot-to-the-floor rock-blues session because everyone holds back and the songs seethe with barely...
> blues/1397/eric-andersen-blue-rain-live-appleseed-elite/

John Mayall (whose Blues From Laurel Canyon in '68 appears as an Essential Elsewhere, see tag) was undeniably the man who founded the British blues boom in the early 60s and on his albums at the time he covered classic and often little known blues material. His bands during those years included Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce (who went on to form...
> music/1458/john-mayall-live-from-austintx-new-west-elite/

Okay, all instrumental, guitar-driven blues isn't for everyone I agree -- but if anyone can persuade you to the cause it is Earl and his white-hot band which have their feet firmly in two camps, tough Texas blues where Earl is at home and freewheeling jazz-blues courtesy of pianist and Hammond player Dave Limina. So this is sort of...
> music/1467/ronnie-earl-and-the-broadcasters-hope-radio-elite/

These Allstars aren't really, but two of them are the sons of the great James Luther Dickinson whose last album was one of the Best of Elsewhere 2007: a swirling implosion of country, psychedelic rock, blues and cornmash liquor. The boys haven't fallen too far from the tree but sometimes bring a swag more gritty psychedelic blues into the...
> music/1560/north-mississippi-allstars-hernando-songs-of-the-south/

I maintain I was right about this Ohio drum-'n'guitar duo: that their first albums showed more promise than being as great as they were hailed. And that when I saw them I was struck by how the hip, young crowd acclaimed them yet wouldn't cross the street to see someone as unfashionable as, say, George Thorogood who could wipe the floor with...
> music/1573/the-black-keys-attack-and-release-shock/

Blues singer/guitarist Benoit recorded this album live in Nashville in 2006 with his band Louisiana Leroux the night before he picked up the BB King award for entertainer of the year and best contemporary performer. Guests on stage included Jim Lauderdale, Kim Wilson of the fabulous Thunderbirds and Jimmy Hall of West Willie. Benoit can play...
> music/1577/tab-benoit-with-louisiana-leroux-night-train-to-nashville-elite/

Having once stood in torrential rain and mud up to my boot-tops at a New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival to watch guitarist Sonny Landreth, I have always felt a strange loyalty to him. I have faithfully reviewed his many albums but always came to the same conclusion. Gifted though he obviously is -- and conceding his career performing...
> music/1623/sonny-landreth-from-the-reach-shock/

It's odd that this album should be called "Presenting" given that Auckland-based guitarist Billy TK Jnr has been taking his brand of tough Texas blues around the bars and clubs of New Zealand (and to Texas) for about two decades. Perhaps the reason he isn't a household name is that he has been known to take sabbaticals and go get...
> blues/1632/billy-tk-jnr-presenting-billy-tk-jnr-ode/

This seventysomething year old has earned to right to sing the blues: his father was lynched by the Klan back home in Alabama when he was boy; he was moved around staying with various relatives; played with John Lee Hooker for a while; has recorded for about as many blues labels as there are; lived in Europe for a while . . . He's...
> music/2543/louisiana-red-back-to-the-black-bayou-ruf-yellow-eye/

Singer-guitarist Principato has some fine friends who line up to help out here. Slide guitarist Sonny Landreth, Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns, and Chuck Leavell (Allmans and Stones) on keyboards, keyboard player Brian Auger, bassist Willie Weeks . . . Sort of rootsy superstar session (with people who are rather far below the threshold...
> music/3894/tom-principato-a-part-of-me-powerhouse/

Soulful blues with a dark bayou twist is Tab Benoit's musical style, but he also locates lyrics in this world, whether it be a relationship going to hell (“We've been fighting over nothing”) or the Louisiana environment on the same path (“Whatcha gonna tell the children/trees/spirits when the heart of the bayou...
> blues/4253/tab-benoit-medicine-telarc/

That this was recorded on a Caribbean cruise might tell you all you need about its crowd-pleasing nature. But Walker's guests (guitarists Johnny Winter, Tab Benoit and Duke Robillard, Watermelon Slim on harmonica among them) get away serious six-string savagery and down low dirty vocals. Yes, crowd-pleasing – but songs like A Poor...
> blues/4295/joe-louis-walkers-blues-conspiracy-live-on-the-legendary-rhythm-and-blues-cruise-stony-plain/

Stephen Stills -- of Crosby, Stills and Nash -- says that Turner reminds him of his old friend Jimi Hendrix, and you can certainly hear that sky-scaling Jimi-approach in any number of the blistering tracks on this powerful album. But Turner does pull back in some material -- which still seem to seethe with menace. This album won't be to...
> blues/846/eddie-turner-the-turner-diaries-northern-blues-southbound/