{"id":10939,"date":"2016-06-13T05:30:53","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T09:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=10939"},"modified":"2016-06-13T08:10:16","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T12:10:16","slug":"hundred-word-reviews-for-june-2016-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/13\/hundred-word-reviews-for-june-2016-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Hundred-word Reviews for June 2016, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here we go with another baker&#8217;s two-dozen (okay, 25) capsule reviews. Five a day, all work-week long. Today it&#8217;s (more or less) blues.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10941\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/zuzu_welsh.jpg\" alt=\"zuzu_welsh\" width=\"300\" height=\"287\" \/><b>Zuzu Welsh Band \u2013 <i>Fault Line<\/i><\/b><br \/>\nGood timin&#8217; meat-and-potatoes blues rock is served up by this Asheville NC-based quintet. Tasty electric slide guitar is the centerpiece on some tracks, and the songs and arrangement bear the influence of <b>Eric Clapton<\/b> and <b>Mark Knopfler<\/b>. The production aesthetic is no-frills, up close and personal, which suits the songs quite well. \u201cSullen Eyes\u201d features a catchy lead guitar solo run through a Leslie speaker, and \u201cSwimming with the Dolphins\u201d is reminiscent \u2013 both in style and subject matter \u2013 of Clapton&#8217;s weeper \u201cTears in Heaven.\u201d The band gigs heavily in Western North Carolina. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdbaby.com\/cd\/thezuzuwelshband\"><i>Fault Line<\/i><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdbaby.com\/cd\/thezuzuwelshband\"> is available from Cdbaby<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10945\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/jeff_jensen.jpg\" alt=\"jeff_jensen\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/jeff_jensen.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/jeff_jensen-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"float: left; padding: 10px; width: 120px; height: 240px;\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;OneJS=1&amp;Operation=GetAdHtml&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;source=ss&amp;ref=as_ss_li_til&amp;ad_type=product_link&amp;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&amp;marketplace=amazon&amp;region=US&amp;placement=B01CB5YTYY&amp;asins=B01CB5YTYY&amp;linkId=aa7634c2804b381ba9b2092c59ff2fee&amp;show_border=true&amp;link_opens_in_new_window=true\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<b>Jeff Jensen \u2013 <i>Live: the River City Sessions<\/i><\/b><br \/>\nAs I&#8217;ve mentioned many times before, blues is a hard sell for me. In fact, it&#8217;s a good bet that if I even bother to review a blues disc, it has greatly impressed me. This disc features eleven tunes played live (and nearly two minutes of introductions). Guitarist Jensen leads a tight trio though a set that&#8217;s heavy on originals, and the few covers (<b>Bob Dylan<\/b>, <b>Tom Waits<\/b>, <b>T-Bone Walker<\/b>) are well-chosen. The energy and playing put this album several notches above competitors. And \u2013 rare for a blues album \u2013 the package design doesn&#8217;t suck. Definitely worth seeking out.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10944\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/reverend_freakchild.jpg\" alt=\"reverend_freakchild\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/reverend_freakchild.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/reverend_freakchild-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\n<b>Reverend Freakchild \u2013 <i>Illogical Optimism<\/i><\/b><br \/>\nWhat have we here? A triple-CD set from an act I&#8217;ve never heard of. NYC-based Freakchild is originally from Hawai&#8217;i, and while his inimitable style is nominally blues, he draws from a grab-bag of styles. The opening tune on the first disc is a case in point: A totally re-imagined (ha!) reading of <b>John Lennon<\/b>&#8216;s \u201cImagine\u201d sounds a bit like <b>Paul Simon<\/b> might, were he backed by the <b>Dave Matthews Band<\/b>. There are elements of New Orleans second-line, folk, psychedelia, and damn near anything else you might think of. Three discs is a helluva lotta Freakchild, but it&#8217;s good stuff.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10943\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/nigel_hall.jpg\" alt=\"nigel_hall\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/nigel_hall.jpg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/nigel_hall-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"float: left; padding: 10px; width: 120px; height: 240px;\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;OneJS=1&amp;Operation=GetAdHtml&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;source=ss&amp;ref=as_ss_li_til&amp;ad_type=product_link&amp;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&amp;marketplace=amazon&amp;region=US&amp;placement=B015EC6X5O&amp;asins=B015EC6X5O&amp;linkId=d08be6dc55e96c95cd353a082cb3d8f5&amp;show_border=true&amp;link_opens_in_new_window=true\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<b>Nigel Hall \u2013 <i>Ladies &amp; Gentlemen&#8230;Nigel Hall<\/i><\/b><br \/>\nThis one&#8217;s been out a while, but it&#8217;s so great that it deserves coverage, even belated. If your tastes include the classic soul sounds of late 1960s and early 70s (<b><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2010\/08\/20\/album-review-isaac-hayes-black-moses\/\">Isaac Hayes<\/a><\/b>, <b>Bill Withers<\/b>, <b><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/19\/cd-review-the-dramatics-whatcha-see-is-whatcha-get\/\">The Dramatics<\/a><\/b>, etc.) then you simply must lay hands on this album from the New Orleans keyboaridst\/vocalist. He&#8217;s played with <b>Lettuce<\/b>, <b>Warren Haynes<\/b> and many others in the funk\/jam\/soul orbit, but he really has a style all his own. It&#8217;s just that said style has one foot in the boogaloo vibe of groups like <b>Soulive<\/b> and <b>The New Mastersounds<\/b>, and the other in enduring 1970s music.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10942\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/paul_reddick.jpg\" alt=\"paul_reddick\" width=\"300\" height=\"267\" \/><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"float: left; padding: 10px; width: 120px; height: 240px;\" src=\"\/\/ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/widgets\/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&amp;OneJS=1&amp;Operation=GetAdHtml&amp;MarketPlace=US&amp;source=ss&amp;ref=as_ss_li_til&amp;ad_type=product_link&amp;tracking_id=musoscribe-20&amp;marketplace=amazon&amp;region=US&amp;placement=B01DY2Z66S&amp;asins=B01DY2Z66S&amp;linkId=c0031d7e8454a1226dde59de2cf3fd70&amp;show_border=true&amp;link_opens_in_new_window=true\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<b>Paul Reddick \u2013 <i>Ride the One<\/i><\/b><br \/>\nWhen it&#8217;s done well, I&#8217;m a pushover for overdriven, Green Bullet-amped harmonica blues. And Paul Reddick is here to deliver just that, backed by a solid, gritty band. A rock aesthetic applied to blues tunes makes Reddick&#8217;s music sound like something halfway between <b>ZZ Top<\/b> and the late <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2010\/02\/16\/album-review-nick-curran-reform-school-girl\/\"><b>Nick Curran<\/b><\/a>. The tunes are hard, heavy and hypnotic. To wit: \u201cCelebrate\u201d has one friggin&#8217; chord! But it&#8217;s not how many chords you use, it&#8217;s what you do with &#8217;em. Reddick and his band know what to do. And when they get quite (as on \u201cMourning Dove\u201d), they&#8217;re positively soulful and smoldering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here we go with another baker&#8217;s two-dozen (okay, 25) capsule reviews. Five a day, all work-week long. Today it&#8217;s (more or less) blues. Zuzu Welsh Band \u2013 Fault Line Good [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10943,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[2723,2722,2724,2725,2721],"class_list":["post-10939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-jeff-jensen","tag-nigel-hall","tag-paul-reddick","tag-reverend-freakchild","tag-zuzu-welsh","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10939"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11011,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10939\/revisions\/11011"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}