Saturday, October 24, 2009

Steve GUYGER - Radio Blues 2008


Steve GUYGER - Radio Blues 2008

Blues

I decided to write a quick note about this CD after noticing no-one had reviewed it. I was pleasantly suprised with this album and it has quickly become one of my favorites. I listen to virtually ALL new blues releases so I like to think I have high standards. Steve has a great blues voice, plays a nice harmonica, and writes some good songs. The album is strong throughout.
By Greg Demko.
**
It would be difficult for Steve to top his first release for Severn, Past Life Blues, but with his most recent album, Radio Blues (0044), he just might have pulled it off. As always, it is engineered and mixed flawlessly by David Earl himself at Severn Studios in Severn, MD, and contains no less than ten original tunes (of the fourteen) penned by Steve himself, who of late has become a blues songsmith to be reckoned with. As usual, Steve surrounds himself with the best sidemen available, including long time bassist, Steve Gomes. And newcomer Johnny Moeller on lead guitar is a revelation. Harp great Rick Estrin, who provides the liner notes, gives the venture his hearty stamp of approval and I’m with him all the way as to his recommendation.

Radio Blues no doubt refers to the Golden Age of the blues, the 50s, when at night you could tune into a clear channel 50,000 watt powerhouse like WLAC in Nashville and then buy the platters the DJs would play via mail order. The disks would be a sampling of all types of blues and their respective birth places. Thus, Steve Guyger’s Radio Blues is actually a blues odyssey, an excursion to all the seminal hotbeds of blues throughout the United States, all the regions which have contributed their own brand of blues to that body of work so uniquely American. And, believe me, few artists can even attempt such an ambitious undertaking. If it’s Louisiana blues that you crave, it is well represented by such numbers as the funky New Orleans parade beat of Smiley Lewis’s “Oh Red;” the Cajun flavored “Little Rita,” wherein Steve plays the harmonica like a zydeco accordion; and the classic E-flat, B-flat (with triplets) of Swamp Pop or Swamp Blues (my favorite) of “I Can See By Your Eyes.” In fact, I can imagine a Slim Harpo or Lazy Lester supplying the harp licks to this memorable number. Steve also tackles a couple of Piedmont blues inspired tunes, in which he plays in a country harp manner very reminiscent of Sonny Terry---the instrumental “Afghan Rumble” and “Hey Little Baby,” the latter with the hand jive rhythm of Bobby Bland’s “Chicken Hop.” And West Coast jump blues closes the CD with Steve’s instrumental take on Joe Liggins’s signature “Honeydripper.”
By Larry Benicewicz, B.B.S.
**
Steve Guyger - Harmonica
Johnny Moeller - Guitar
**
01. Lookie Here (4:03)
02. You're So Fine (4:08)
03. Cool In The Evening (5:34)
04. Little Rita (2:29)
05. Blues Won't Let Me Be (4:05)
06. School Is Over (3:30)
07. Afghan Rumble (2:20)
08. I'm Shakin' (4:06)
09. Oh Red (4:28)
10. I Can See By Your Eyes (4:39)
11. Won't You Come On Out Tonight (3:35)
12. Hey Little Baby (4:16)
13. Let Me Hang Around (3:30)
14. Honeydripper (2:13)
**
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