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Three-time Blues Music Award nominee (and 2019 winner in the Instrumentalist \u2013 Guitar category) Monster Mike Welch has been releasing albums under his own name since his 1996 debut, These Blues Are Mine<\/i>. The Boston-born guitarist\u2019s extensive credits include recordings and performances with Johnny Winter, Nick Moss, Duke Robillard and many others. He also worked as lead guitarist in Sugar Ray & the Bluetones, playing on five of that group\u2019s albums.<\/p>\n
For his eighth (and first for Gulf Coast) solo release, Welch did what many other wise and well-informed blues artists have done of late: he made the trek to Kid Andersen\u2019s Greaseland Studio in San Jose. There he made Nothing But Time<\/i>, drawing upon the skill of a core group of top players including bassist extraordinaire Jerry Jemmott, pianist Bob Welsh, drummer Fabrice Bessouat (recently heard on Sax Gordon\u2019s Extreme Sax!<\/i> album) and producer Andersen himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalking to You Baby\u201d is built around musical dialogue: Welch and his searing guitar leads engage in spirited give-and-take. His assertive guitar lines soar over a rock-solid rhythm section and insistent horn riffs. \u201cIf I Had Possession Over Judgment Day\u201d couldn\u2019t be more different; squealing slide guitar, rollicking piano and just the right amount of distortion on the vocal all add up to a lively reading of one of Robert Johnson\u2019s lesser-known songs. \u201cI\u2019ve Got Nothing But Time\u201d is a solid slab of southern soul.<\/p>\n
One highlight of Nothing But Time<\/i> is also a most unlikely cover: \u201cI Me Mine\u201d is a George Harrison song, the last recording The Beatles worked on before their split. Here the Harrison classic is inventively recast; Welch makes it his own, digging deep to finding the blues texture within the composition. In doing so, Welch makes a strong case that it was there all along, waiting to be discovered.<\/p>\n
\u201cOffswitch Blues\u201d sounds almost as if it\u2019s a different artist. In lesser hands, such variety could result in a scattershot, unfocused album. But Welch\u2019s versatility is a strength, and the wide-screen musical landscape explored on Nothing But Time<\/i> is a big part of what makes it special.<\/p>\n
A raucous Texas swing vibe informs \u201cLosing Every Battle.\u201d \u201cHard to Get Along With\u201d is a lead guitar extravaganza. The exuberant \u201cJump for Joy\u201d more than lives up to its title; it may well be the strongest cut on the set. Demonstrating his skill at crate-digging, Welch unearths a rarely-covered Buddy Guy number, \u201cTen Years Ago,\u201d first waxed in 1960. He leans into the arrangement with equal parts passion and subtlety.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfraid of My Own Tears, Part 1 & 2\u201d sounds like classic blues\/soul track of the \u201860s; At nearly nine minutes and without lyrics, not a second is wasted. Welch wraps up this fine collection with some unaccompanied acoustic country blues, a faithful reading of Johnson\u2019s \u201cKind Hearted Woman Blues.\u201d It\u2019s a fitting conclusion to a superb release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Three-time Blues Music Award nominee (and 2019 winner in the Instrumentalist \u2013 Guitar category) Monster Mike Welch has been releasing albums under his own name since his 1996 debut, These […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[5264],"class_list":["post-26275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-monster-mike-welch","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\/26275","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=26275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26277,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26275\/revisions\/26277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}