{"id":19142,"date":"2020-08-30T05:30:43","date_gmt":"2020-08-30T09:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=19142"},"modified":"2020-08-05T11:37:19","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T15:37:19","slug":"album-review-franck-l-goldwasser-sweet-little-black-spider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/30\/album-review-franck-l-goldwasser-sweet-little-black-spider\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Franck L. Goldwasser \u2013 Sweet Little Black Spider"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The 1980s were not a rich era for the blues. But the decade wasn\u2019t without highlights. Artists like Joe Louis Walker and Arthur Adams were prominent on the scene. And older artists like Jimmy \u201cFast Fingers\u201d Dawkins and Charlie Musselwhite were still wowing audiences and cutting records. And French-born guitarist Franck L. Goldwasser (then known as Paris Slim) was working as a sideman, backing up those artists and many others.His 1989 debut, Blues for Esther<\/em> was nominated for a W.C. Handy Award. He’d go on to release several other albums. Gigging around the Bay Area, Goldwasser would in 2000 become a founding member of The Mannish Boys.<\/p>\n

Eight years after Can’t Raise Me<\/em> (his sixth album), Goldwasser returns with Sweet Little Black Spider<\/i>, co-produced with by (and featuring) Kid Andersen at the latter\u2019s Greaseland Studio. The album is a spare, lean-and-mean, no-frills affair that eschews production flourishes and gimmicks in favor of an unvarnished musical honesty.<\/p>\n

Most of the thirteen cuts on Sweet Little Black Spider<\/i> feature only Goldwasser (on guitar and vocals), Andersen on bass and drummer June Core. And even the three exceptions add only harp, electric piano or rhythm guitar (but never all three).<\/p>\n

The album feels like an early evening blues set: It starts out competently enough, but the artist seems to loosen up, settle into a comfortable groove and play with more feeling and finesse as the album\/evening unwinds. Goldwasser truly hits his stride on \u201cShe\u2019s Hip,\u201d and tears the roof off the sucker with stinging, swaggering blues-rocking on \u201cStruggle in My Hometown.\u201d Though Goldwasser earned his reputation as a guitarist, his wailing blues harp on \u201cStruggle in My Hometown\u201d is a highlight of the record. His fiery lead guitar makes an appearance, too, and the band \u2013 which had seemed to be holding back just a bit \u2013 is completely on fire here; Andersen\u2019s bass lines contrast with Goldwasser\u2019s licks in creamy Bruce and Clapton style.<\/p>\n

The hits keep on coming. A tribute to the Parliament-Funkadelic guitarist, \u201cBlues for Eddie Hazel\u201d leans heavily on the wah-wah pedal for a searing, slow-burning instrumental workout. And in keeping with the rhythm of a live set, the \u201cDon\u2019t Give Up On Me, Baby\u201d is an outing that oozes hard-won confidence. Andersen\u2019s electric piano is tasty and (equally importantly) tasteful. Goldwasser takes one of his lengthiest solo spots here, and not a note is wasted.<\/p>\n

The listener is left to wonder was \u201cT.S.O.B.C.\u201d means, as the track is an instrumental. But the cocky melody speaks volumes. After a farewell track (\u201cEvil Wind Blowin\u2019), the album ends with the high energy jump blues of \u201cNosluf\u2019s Last Laugh.\u201d A weak \u201cbonus track\u201d would have been better left off.<\/p>\n

The album includes a second disc of spoken-word pieces. Subtitled \u201cStories from the Trenches of the Blues,\u201d the disc is a series of eight tracks in which Goldwasser reminisces about Sonny Rhodes, Memphis Charlie, some \u201cEast Bay guy\u201d and others while nondescript instrumental blues is played in the background. The tracks are intermittently interesting, but this second disc doesn\u2019t add substantial value to the album as a whole, and it certainly does not constitute a reason to seek out this otherwise excellent album.<\/p>\n

Note: This review corrects some unfortunate factual mistakes appeared in the original (print) version. I regret the errors. — bk<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 1980s were not a rich era for the blues. But the decade wasn\u2019t without highlights. Artists like Joe Louis Walker and Arthur Adams were prominent on the scene. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19143,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[4253],"class_list":["post-19142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-franck-l-goldwasser","cat-9-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19142","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=19142"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19209,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19142\/revisions\/19209"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}