Review Corner

Category: Blues

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    Fantastic Negrito: The Last Days of Oakland

    Xavier Dphrepaulezz (pronounced De-Frepple-Ez) is about the most interesting musician you could come across, and now he’s got a successful enough album that it’s out on a major label, after an initial release a year ago. Last Days is out on Cooking Vinyl, after coming out on Fantastic Negrito’s own Blackball Universe. The UK label…

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    Jocee: Just Love

    Jocee is living the dream whether or not anyone buys this. She already makes a living with a residency at the Blues Kitchen in Shoreditch, ran an acoustic music night for emerging artists with Pixie Lott for three years and is a member of the Urban Voices Collective. She has worked with Paloma Faith at…

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    Booker T and the MGs, Carla Thomas, Stax Classics

    Released as part of Stax Records’ 60th anniversary celebration, the Stax Classics series highlights some the label’s biggest stars from the 1960s and 70s, budget-priced albums offering a dozen songs that “transcend the obvious hits”, as the PR says. This week, we’ve got two to review. Booker T and the MGs were the house band…

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    Various: Music from The American Epic Sessions

    We thought Old Crow Medicine Show doing Blonde on Blonde live in Nashville was pretty cool but this is even better. The backstory is that it’s a television documentary on the early days of music. In the 1920s, as radio took over the pop music business, record companies took to the road to find new…

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    Seafoam Green: Topanga Mansion

    This wonderful — and there’s no other word for it — album is a debut from Liverpool-based, Dublin-born singer/songwriter Dave O’Grady but he’s clearly a man who’s spent his life making music. Early plays reminded us of Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, whose New Earth Mud has been a staple in the Review Corner since its…

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    Hibla Gerzmava: Opera Jazz Blues

    This CD is a programme of work it probably never crossed your mind you’d need: soprano Gerzmava sings classical, jazz and blues. This doesn’t mean she stops being a soprano and sings jazz in husky tones, it means you get jazz/blues (and classical) piano accompanying what is mostly operatic singing. Track one is a delicate…

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    Bob Webb: Tree Of Life, A Thirty-Year Anthology

    The music industry (like books) is propped up by massive-selling stars — one Adele will keep an entire company in profit. (Beggars Group saw total operating profits jump 229.2% to £16.68m in 2015, courtesy of Adele’s 25, while 2011, when Adele’s 21 was released, saw the firm turn over £86.2m in revenue, with an operating…

  • Andrew Riverstone: Sunny Monday

      Riverstone played in Alsager recently and his promoter sent us a review of his album, which is easy listening (in a good way) blues. Riverstone’s music pays homage to classic artists from the 60s and 70s and, having worked as a session man, he’s a fluid and expressive guitarist. Live, Ed Sheeran-style, he layers…