The Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue
Command Performance
Delta Groove (2008) DGPCD121



13 tracks, 75 minutes. Excellent. This is the kind of music that draws fans into our small corral hopefully turning their ears (and hearts) towards the true beat of blues and opening doors to artists most people have little clue or concept of. Is it blues? That's probably open to a lengthy debate without a definitive answer, but this disc does what it's supposed to. One gets the impression from the cover art that all these recordings came off the ship following the 2007 Blues Cruise. In actuality, only three of the baker's dozen did; Curtis Salgado's version of If It Ain't Me, Tommy Castro's High On The Hog and the Huey Smith classic, Sea Cruise, a musical throwdown. The rest of the tracks were cut 'live' over the course of a few days at different venues in California. Magic Dick revives his old J. Geils harp instrumental Whammer Jammer and he tackles Little Walter's Tell Me Mama. Deanna Bogart offers her own Still The Girl In The Band as well as another Geils number in Looking For A Love, plus Billy Preston's Will It Go Round In Circles. Tommy Castro and Ronnie Baker Brooks wow the crowds with guitar pyrotechnics for a handful, but Brooks misses the mark on his own See You Hurt No More. If fans want to hear multiple-effects Robin Trower-like guitar, they'd be better served buying Trower's recordings. This disc offers listeners a good variety of artists over the seventy-five minutes, and also a peek at some closer-to-traditional blues with Brooks tossing in Muddy's She's Nineteen Years Old. Sure, the guitar solos are generally too over-the-top, the horns blare and blast loudly and there's little in the way of dynamics, but it's music to party by. In that regard, it's definitely successful.

Delta Groove

© 2009 by Craig Ruskey