Oscar LaDell: Love & Revolution (digital outlets)

 |   |  <1 min read

Change the World (Part 1)
Oscar LaDell: Love & Revolution (digital outlets)
Blues musician Oscar LaDell from Dunedin flew onto our radar in 2020 with his debut album Gone Away where his impressive guitar skills (across a number blues-related idioms) were showcased.

That he had shifts into soul and funk, as well as wrote tight originals, was all to the good . . . although we did wonder the wisdom of the female backing singer in places.

Still, as a debut it was a sound calling card and now, six months later, he follows it up, and that is speed we approve of (and he graduated from uni during that period, so not a lazy guy).

As before, LaDell sensibly mixes up styles with a flicker of Hendrix in ballad mode through Curtis Knight-styled falsetto-soul blues (the excellent two-part Change the World), low light ballads (Moonlight, the Sam Cooke-with-harmonica Please Forgive Me), house-rockin' blues (the joyous Ask My Baby), the acoustic slide Well of Sorrow where he sounds older than his 22 years, the seven and half minute ballad Falling For You which opens out into a slow-burn guitar solo and sensibly eschews the flash he is capable of as it winds down to a quiet coda before the brief and dreamy Outro.

Oscar LaDell has gained a considerable foothold with these two albums but this one has pushed him up the mountain with a considerable leap.

.

You can hear this album on Spotify here



Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Blues at Elsewhere articles index

Savoy Brown: Voodoo Moon (Ruf/Yellow Eye)

Savoy Brown: Voodoo Moon (Ruf/Yellow Eye)

Many years ago Pete Frame would produce books of meticulously drawn family trees of rock bands. His Sabbath Bloody Sabbath tree filled two tightly written gatefold A5 pages and traced Black Sabbath... > Read more

Chris Cain: Raisin' Cain (Alligator/Southbound/digital outlets)

Chris Cain: Raisin' Cain (Alligator/Southbound/digital outlets)

As we've previously noted, to some extent the Alligator label – which recently celebrated its 50thanniversary – picked up the legacy of Chicago's Chess Records, albeit with the hard... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

GENE PITNEY: GENE PITNEY'S BIG SIXTEEN, CONSIDERED (1964): Teardrops topping the charts to dead alone in Cardiff

GENE PITNEY: GENE PITNEY'S BIG SIXTEEN, CONSIDERED (1964): Teardrops topping the charts to dead alone in Cardiff

Although the British Invasion in 1964-65 severely damaged the careers of many US artists – pretty-boy male singers most notably – a few survived the incursions.... > Read more

GREETINGS FROM ROUTE 66, edited by MICHAEL DREGNI

GREETINGS FROM ROUTE 66, edited by MICHAEL DREGNI

When, in 1946, Bobby Troup wrote what became his classic song Route 66, he could hardly have anticipated how popular it would become. After all, he'd really only written a few words and the hook... > Read more