{"id":23366,"date":"2022-07-14T05:30:13","date_gmt":"2022-07-14T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23366"},"modified":"2022-07-21T12:50:39","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T16:50:39","slug":"album-review-phantom-blues-band-blues-for-breakfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/14\/album-review-phantom-blues-band-blues-for-breakfast\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Phantom Blues Band \u2013 Blues for Breakfast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-23367\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/phantom_blues_band.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"312\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/phantom_blues_band.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/phantom_blues_band-300x267.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Being associated with <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/tag\/taj-mahal\/\">Taj Mahal<\/a> is a guarantor of quality. And the Phantom Blues Band developed their reputation backing the venerated blues\/world music giant before setting out on their own with 2006\u2019s <i>Out of the Shadows<\/i>. Four albums and 16 years later, the six-man outfit still delivers.<\/p>\n<p>For all its virtues, even the wide-encompassing blues idiom is too narrow a style to contain the musical variety of the Phantom Blues Band. With a musical demeanor and worldview that places them in a similar category as NRBQ, the group makes a uniquely American music that needn\u2019t be labeled.<\/p>\n<p>There are blues textures, to be sure \u2013 check out the Bobby Blandishments of \u201cLaughin\u2019 and Clownin\u2019\u201d for proof \u2013 but there\u2019s funk, jazz, Big Easy-flavored r&amp;b (\u201cShe\u2019s Into Something\u201d), reggae (\u201cMove On Up\u201d), jump blues (\u201cI Know You Don\u2019t Love Me\u201d), swinging c&amp;w (\u201cCountry Boy\u201d), and lots and lots (and lots) of soul. Bonnie Raitt even stops by to lend her vocals to a duet.<\/p>\n<p>If many of the songs on <i>Blues for Breakfast<\/i> sound familiar, that\u2019s because they are. The group digs into a kind of alternate Great American Songbook, imbuing the tracks with their inimitable character while staying true to the vibe of the originals.<\/p>\n<p>Sadly, founding member and keyboardist Mike Finnigan succumbed to cancer during the making of the album; he appears on but one track, \u201cOK, I Admit It.\u201d His keyboard duties are ably taken up on the remainder of the album by another highly admired musician, Jim Pugh. The album is dedicated to Finnigan, and proceeds benefit a music scholarship in his name.<\/p>\n<p>Music like this, it\u2019s the breakfast of champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Being associated with Taj Mahal is a guarantor of quality. And the Phantom Blues Band developed their reputation backing the venerated blues\/world music giant before setting out on their own [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[4884],"class_list":["post-23366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-phantom-blues-band","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\/23366","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=23366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23368,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23366\/revisions\/23368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}