Label: TopCat
Recorded live at the Blue Cat Blues Club, Dallas, Texas in 1998
Release Date: Jun 20, 2000
Blues
You can count on Jim Suhler and Alan Haynes to do vigorous and exciting music. This live set was recorded at the Blue Cat Blues club in Dallas' Deep Ellum district. It has none of the studio touchup work that's fashionable on many albums that purport to be "live". On bass and drums respectively are Carlton Powell and Paul Hollis, a famously solid rhythm section that regularly backs Suhler.
The kickoff cut is "Too Poor To Die", the chunka-chunk rhythm of which hosts as sardonic and macabre a lyric as the version of "Black Cat Bone" by the poet laureate of Texas death music, Lightnin' Hopkins. The tune has tons of slashing, volcanic slide. A slide swapmeet of epic proportion brings on "Knockin' On My Door", a hard-hitting shuffle. Suhler sings the former song, Haynes the latter.
Another audience fave is Suhler's reworking of psychedelic bluesmaster Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?". It's replete with requisite feedback and sonic weirdness wrought not from a Strat, as you'd expect but from of all things, a National steel acoustic guitar!
So, kick back and imagine yourself at a stageside table at the Blue Cat. slam a beer. Slam another. and there you are, in Texas, set for an immersive, knock-out blues experience with Jim Suhler and Alan haynes.
By Tim Schuller.
**
The Blue Cat Blues club in Dallas' Deep Ellum district is where this live performance was recorded. It has none of the studio touchup work that's fashionable on many albums that purport to be "live". It figures, you could trust Suhler, Haynes, and TopCat.
The Blue Cat Blues club in Dallas' Deep Ellum district is where this live performance was recorded. It has none of the studio touchup work that's fashionable on many albums that purport to be "live". It figures, you could trust Suhler, Haynes, and TopCat Records to bring to you the music just as it happened, in a true-life Texas saloon on a winter night in '98. There is edge, tension and spontaniety as well as high caliber musicianship.
Suhler, the Dallas-born singer/guitarist has accompanied such blues notables as George Thorogood and Zuzu Bollin, and works with his own band (Monkey Beat). He's that rare sort of bluesrocker who can play straight blues more to the liking of blues hard-liners than many who're supposedly specialists in the idiom. He's reckoned to be one of the most formidable slide men on the sphere. Suhler's been seen on national TV on Conan O'Brien's show, backing Thorogood. He's currently a member of Thorogood's touring band.
Haynes is generally considered to be the more traditional blues stylist, though that's not to say he's restrained. Alan has played with some of the real heavy guys, like Muddy Waters, Albert Collins, Hubert Sumlin, and Stevie. "One of my earliest blues/rock influences was Johnny Winter and Alan knows Johnny from way back", offers Suhler.
The kickoff cut is "Two Poor To Die", the chunka-chunk rhythm of which hosts as sardonic and macabre a lyric as "Black Cat Bone" by the poet laureate of Texas death music, Lightnin' Hopkins. The tune has tons of slashing, volcanic slide. A slide swapmeet of epic proportion brings on "Knockin' On My Door", a hard-hitting shuffle. Suhler sings the former song, Haynes the latter. They tear into "My Baby's Gone", a fast-paced item made famous on North Texas' blues circuit by Fort Worth's Ray Sharpe. Then come room-rattling tom-toms of the sort that either mean you're either in a Tarzan movie or else Paul Hollis is pounding out the intro to "Don't Do It". Another audience favorite is Suhler's reworking of psychedelic bluesmaster Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?". It's replete with requisite feedback and sonic weirdness wrought not from a Strat as you'd expect but from a National steel acoustic guitar!
From CD Universe.
**
Carlton Powell- Bass
Paul Hollis- Drums
Alan Haynes- Vocals, Guitar
Jim Suhler- Vocals, Guitar
**
01.Too Poor To Die 6:47
02.Knockin' At Your Door 8:04
03.I Wonder Why 7:44
04.Down And Out In Texas 6:27
05.Don't Do It 4:18
06.Oh My Baby's Gone 3:43
07.Say Your Prayers 5:25
08.Are You Experienced 6:36
**
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