Blues
It took four years, party due to record company red tape, for Mo to follow up his masterful "Blues Is My Wailin' Wall". That album is a hard act to follow but "Red, White & Blues" is no sophomore slump for sure. This funky blues record has it's serious side but the mood and material is more loose. The thumping "The Holy Howl" sounds like an outtake from "Wailin Wall". He calls blues a "holy howl". "It's the wails, the moans and groans/This is the music that is the markers of buried bones" perhaps a reference to the graves of slaves. To Mo blues is his soul music- that innermost gut source of emotion. The potentially controversial "The Boy Who Stole The Blues" basically says white boy Elvis robbed the blues from black folk, got rich and the blues made him pay for it. "Some say Jim Crow made him the king of rock & Roll/And if there had to be a king/It would have been a black boy that's for sure". But this isn't really a diatribe against Elvis (or Caucasians) and in some ways he gives him credit. "Just like Jackie (Robinson) broke the color line too/Freein' America to the blues/Talking about the boy (Elvis) who stole the blues". Mo knows that white people get the blues too as he explains on "Blue Collar Blues". That urban wit comes out on "DNA" where it used to be: "Mama's baby/Daddy's maybe/.That's what they used to say/But now DNA gave you away". One of the more uncharacteristic cuts is the pop/soul/reggae "Prisoners Of War" with some great sax by Ernie Watts- this has serious radio potential on Adult Alternative or Urban Contemporary radio stations. "Welcome To The Faultline" is a modern day "Go west young man" tale of young people with stars in their eyes coming to California and ending up with the "West Coast Blues". I can't wait to hear what Mo comes up with next.
**
01. Red White & Blues 3:40
02. The Holy Howl 4:36
03. The Boy Who Stole the Blues 5:24
04. The Boogie Man 2:27
05. Blue Collar Blues 3:55
06. DNA 4:04
07. Prisoners of War 4:24
08. Children at Play 0:41
09. Have You Seen the American Dream 3:41
10. We Be Marchin' 4:08
11. Happy as a Runaway Slave 3:56
12. I Do This for the Dead 4:10
13. Welcome to the Faultline 6:08
14. Cadillac to Go 1:33
**
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