{"id":23363,"date":"2022-07-13T05:30:07","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T09:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23363"},"modified":"2022-07-12T15:06:32","modified_gmt":"2022-07-12T19:06:32","slug":"album-review-dave-weld-the-imperial-flames-nightwalk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/13\/album-review-dave-weld-the-imperial-flames-nightwalk\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Dave Weld & the Imperial Flames \u2013 Nightwalk"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"A revered mainstay of the Chicago region\u2019s blues scene, Dave weld has a sterling pedigree. An early member of Lil\u2019 Ed and the Blues Imperials, guitarist Weld struck out on his own in 1988. Seemingly more focused on live performance, Weld hasn\u2019t amassed a huge stack of album releases. But the quality of that material is far more important than quantitative measures. 2016\u2019s Slip Into a Dream showcased both Weld\u2019s guitar firepower and his songwriting chops (with vocalist\/collaborator\/diva Mona Rose (Monica Myhre). Weld pens and plays original music with classic qualities.<\/p>\n

And those virtues are the foundation of his latest, Nightwalk<\/i>. Story-songs like the opening track, \u201cMary Who\u201d serve up plenty of Windy City grit and humor. The band lays down a thick, hypnotic vamp while Weld weaves a streetlife tale. His lead licks are initially buried in the mix, but as the tension builds, he opens up. The arrangement ebbs and flows, keeping the listener on the seat-edge.<\/p>\n

That rough and ready approach is employed throughout the record, even on delightfully busy cuts like \u201cDon\u2019t Ever change your Ways,\u201d filled as it is with stinging slide and sprightly piano work (the latter form band member Harry Yaseen). The album showcases the Imperial Flames\u2019 revue-style approach, with Myhre taking over for the powerful lead vocal on \u201cDon\u2019t Tell Mama\u201d and four others. Freed from lead vocal duties, Weld peels off some of his most incendiary guitar work on those cuts.<\/p>\n

And while Weld and his band are prime exponents of Chicago-style blues, they don\u2019t allow themselves ot be hemmed in by the style. The rollicking \u201cRed Hot Tabasco\u201d is a gumbo of New Orleans blues with some delightful piano work. \u201cTravelin\u2019 Woman\u201d provides space for the band\u2019s four-man horn section to blow with the perfect balance of tightness and reckless abandon.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow She\u2019s Gone\u201d is a rewrite of countless Muddy Waters tunes, but it\u2019s done with such style, passion and verve that it\u2019s beyond criticism. \u201cDonde Vas\u201d takes thing in a subtly different musical direction, but still fits neatly into the blues idiom. The slow burning \u201cShe Was a Woman\u201d is furious fire of the SRV variety. Drummer Jeff Taylor takes the vocal mic for \u201cHit by the 103,\u201d with the band mining a vibe reminiscent of early Steve Miller Band. The album-proper wraps with a medley, a steely, wonderfully unhinged reading of J.B. Hutto and Bukka White chestnuts \u201cLoving You\u201d and \u201cJelly Roll Blues.\u201d<\/p>\n

For those who found six minutes-plus of the opening cut not quite enough, the disc is appended with an even-longer alternate version of \u201cMary Who.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A revered mainstay of the Chicago region\u2019s blues scene, Dave weld has a sterling pedigree. An early member of Lil\u2019 Ed and the Blues Imperials, guitarist Weld struck out on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[2598,660],"class_list":["post-23363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-dave-weld","tag-delmark","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\/23363","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=23363"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23365,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23363\/revisions\/23365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}