The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band do one thing and do it well, playing their old-fashioned country blues at 250 gigs a year from bars to festivals.

The Rev plays authentic guitars, too: a 1930 steel-bodied National, a 1934 wood-bodied National Trojan Resonator and a 1994 reproduction of a 1929 Gibson acoustic, while drummer Max Senteney plays a small kit plus a five-gallon plastic bucket fitted with drum hardware.

The band claims to be the only rock band with a bucket endorsement deal. Senteney can play, though, as heard on this album’s Frenchmen Street. The line-up is completed by “Washboard” Breezy Peyton on … well, you can guess.

The sound is dominated by the Rev’s deep and soulful vocals — we always think he sounds like a bear might, should bears sing the blues — and his distinctive guitar sound. He plays the bass line with his thumb and the melody with his fingers.

It all sounds like it’s recorded in a tin shed; in spirit, if not actual sound.
This new collection, their ninth album, is mostly upbeat, though there are couple of slower ones.

Try the frantic Get The Family Together or the slower, bassy Me And The Devil, or Dirty Swerve.

 

Support your local record shop! If you’ve not got one, support us (an independent newspaper) and buy this from here: