{"id":136,"date":"2010-01-08T04:54:06","date_gmt":"2010-01-08T09:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=136"},"modified":"2026-09-04T07:36:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T11:36:45","slug":"album-review-long-john-hunter-looking-for-a-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2010\/01\/08\/album-review-long-john-hunter-looking-for-a-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Long John Hunter – Looking for a Party"},"content":{"rendered":"

Modern blues records often suffer from a fatal flaw: those in charge of the production or arrangement aren’t always possessed of the requisite “feel.” The resulting product thus often contains elements that don’t mesh well with the blues format: maybe it’s synthesizers, or sampled horn charts, or production flourishes that simply don’t work. Sometimes producers and arrangers tell themselves, “yeah, what this artist needs is a little bit of…updating<\/em>. And I’m here to help.” When that happens, it’s generally (but not always) an unmitigated disaster at worst, and simply uninspiring, a wasted opportunity at best.<\/p>\n

On Looking for a Party<\/em>, Long John Hunter<\/strong>‘s latest release, these potential problems are largely avoided. The opening title track features a horn section, but they’re real horns; tasty ones at that. As often works for music of this idiom, the production has a very “live” feel about it; except for the lack of an actual audience, the vibe is very much a live-in-the-studio one.<\/p>\n

If you’ve never heard Hunter, the first song’s arrangement — which gets going well before he opens his mouth — might lead you to expect him to wail or roar, but his vocals are more understated than that. His swagger is pretty much delivered via six-string.<\/p>\n

“What’s Come Over You” features a piano line that seems a bit forced; in one sense it’s a clever sub-melody, but it doesn’t really seem to belong to the song. It ultimately detracts from the tune, but the track is worthy enough to survive the misstep.<\/p>\n

Sometimes blues albums don’t serve up enough variety: you often have one featured artist — usually a guitarist\/vocalist — and that performer only has so much range. After a half dozen songs or so, the sonic palette has pretty well been explored, and things get redundant. Hunter manages to avoid this trap, too. The arrangements cover a number of different styles.<\/p>\n

“Beggar Man” actually manages to include a bit of synthesizer, playing the role of what in the 70s they used to call a “string machine”. A real string section might have been more effective, but then there are always budgetary concerns to be dealt with.<\/p>\n

Even though the just-shy-of-eighty Hunter is a product of West Texas, he’s most effective on Looking for a Party<\/em> when he’s playing in a vaguely New Orleans style. “Looking for My Baby” is a loping number that features Hunter’s lean lead guitar runs over a sawing arrangement.<\/p>\n

“I Know a Man” — one of two numbers on the disc composed by Hunter’s wife Gayle — heads into gospel-blues territory and does so effectively. “Apple of My Eye” is a fast shuffle in the “Hey Bartender” mold.<\/p>\n

There are no blues standards on Looking for a Party<\/em>. In fact producer Dennis Walker had a hand in composition of nine of the disc’s eleven tracks, most often with rhythm guitarist Alan Mirikitani. Hunter himself has writing credit only on the title track.<\/p>\n

Hunter’s recording career began in 1954; the disc’s liner notes offer up an informative and entertaining thumbnail survey of his career, with plenty of first-person reporting to keep it real.<\/p>\n

This disc isn’t quite incendiary — it’s made by a man born in 1931, after all — but it’s an enjoyable journey through the electric blues, played with heart and conviction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Modern blues records often suffer from a fatal flaw: those in charge of the production or arrangement aren’t always possessed of the requisite “feel.” The resulting product thus often contains […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32377,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions\/32377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}