{"id":30410,"date":"2026-02-06T05:30:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=30410"},"modified":"2025-11-18T13:08:56","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:08:56","slug":"album-review-tom-hambridge-down-the-hatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/06\/album-review-tom-hambridge-down-the-hatch\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Tom Hambridge \u2013 Down the Hatch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Tom Hambridge is a highly respected figure for his work as producer and songwriter. His production credits include work with a wide array of blues and blues-adjacent artists including Johnny Winter, Buddy Guy, James Cotton, Mike Zito, Kenny Neal and Christone \u201cKingfish\u201d Ingram. As a songwriter, Hambridge has written for Susan Tedeschi, NRBQ, George Thorogood, Shemekia Copeland, Keb\u2019 Mo\u2019, Joe Bonamassa and countless others. He\u2019s played on many of those and other artists\u2019 albums as well, and has racked up at least seven Grammy Award nominations, two of those wins. Active in most every phase of the music business, he\u2019s a Renaissance man with an impeccable pedigree.<\/p>\n

Alongside all of those activities, he has somehow found the time to release albums under his own name. 1995\u2019s Still Running<\/i> was his solo debut; the newly-released Down the Hatch<\/i> is his ninth and latest offering. Not at all surprisingly, all of the album\u2019s twelve songs are written or co-written by Hambridge, who also produced the album, played drums on every track, and sang on the majority of them.<\/p>\n

Hambridge\u2019s work as musician, composer and producer is by no means limited to the blues; he\u2019s worked on many successful and well-regarded mainstream rock, country and pop projects. But for Down the Hatch<\/i>, he has turned his attention back in the direction of \u2013 if not always squarely upon \u2013 the blues form.<\/p>\n

The fiery Willie Dixon\u2019s \u201cGone\u201d feels like a George Thorogood tune, so it\u2019s no surprise to learn that the Delaware guitarist has a co-credit (though Thorogood doesn\u2019t play on the track). Despite its familiar-sounding title, \u201cEvery Time I Sing the Blues\u201d is a Hambridge original, delivered with simmering, understated passion and tasty electric piano at its foundation.<\/p>\n

The chugging \u201cI Want You Bad\u201d leans heavily into the Chicago electric blues style with appealing results. \u201cHow Blues is That\u201d is heavy in a sort of Muddy Waters meets ZZ Top style. Subtlety is key to the success of the smoky \u201cHard Times.\u201d \u201cWhat Does That Tell You\u201d has an early rock \u2018n\u2019 roll feel. Hambridge gets dreamy and laid back on the sultry \u201cBelieve These Blues\u201d; the tune features some of the best lead guitar work (courtesy of Rob McNelly) on Down the Hatch<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The supercharged blues of \u201cMaking Lemonade\u201d is just right for boot-scootin\u2019, and its judicious use of accordion adds a splash of zydeco to the track. Tom Bukovac\u2019s slide guitar solo makes the fun tune even better. The thumping \u201cWhat Might Have Been\u201d adds a bit of country vibe \u2013 plus some nice Leslie-fied guitar picking and a lovely Wurlitzer solo \u2013 to an accessible tune.<\/p>\n

Hambridge and his players hit hard on the instrumental \u201cYou Gotta Go Through St. Louis,\u201d combining a jump blues feel with traditional rock \u2018n\u2019 roll style. Kevin McKendree\u2019s rollicking piano work is a highlight, as is Buddy Guy\u2019s always-thrilling guitar. Things are toned down for the playful porchfest of \u201cStart Drinking Early Day.\u201d \u201cI Wanna Know You\u201d could be the album\u2019s mainstream single, with a feel reminiscent of the Traveling Wilburys. It\u2019s good to know that even though the busy Hambridge is a prolific writer, he still comes up with plenty of solid material for records like Down the Hatch<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Hambridge is a highly respected figure for his work as producer and songwriter. His production credits include work with a wide array of blues and blues-adjacent artists including Johnny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,49,65],"tags":[5266],"class_list":["post-30410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-new-release","category-review","tag-tom-hambridge","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\/30410","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=30410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30412,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30410\/revisions\/30412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}