Billy Gibson's Southern Livin'

This is an older review from 2007 and I did select this recording to be an outstanding blues recording of 2007. It appeared in the March-April 2007 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 291). I received my copy from wither Inside Sounds or a publicist.

Born in Mississippi where he developed his distinctive soulful singing and harp, Billy Gibson has established himself as among the strongest blues acts in the Memphis area today. Gibson has a new album on Inside Sounds, Southern Livin’, that focuses on his marvelous vocals although he does not ignore his harp. Gibson’s band includes guitarist David Bowen and bassist James Jackson, both veterans of Albert King’s band along with drummer Cedric Keel and keyboardist Charlie wood along with some taut horns on several tracks and guest appearances from guitarists Preston Shannon and Daddy Mack Orr.

Bowen’s original Fireman opens with Bowen playing some guitar evoking Albert King before Gibson’s delivery of the clever lyric. Bowen & Gibson collaborated on Mississippi, a funky celebration his roots and the state’s people with a short harp break. Preston Shannon guests on guitar on Bowen’s I’m Single, a rocking shuffle about no longer being tied up and out having fun, while Too Many Times, is a soul-blues ballad reflecting on a relation gone bad as his woman tries to take two and make three with a killer line about how hard it is to forget her for as Willie Nelson says “you’re always be on my mind.”

Gibson's Hey Hey Pretty Baby. has him telling is woman he is going to rock and sock it to his woman that she’ll know it can’t be wrong, throwing in a short, focused chromatic harp-break. One of three covers included here is a tasty reworking of Sam Myers, I Got a Thing for the Voodoo Woman. Other covers include the fine rendition Booker T & the MG's classic, Hip Hug-Her, with exceptional harp, and the closing Sex Appeal (from Willie Dixon’s Pen, on which Daddy Mack takes the guitar lead), with another nice vocal.

There is hardly anything i can fault on this impressive release. The band is tight and Bowen and Wood are as impressive on their instruments as Gibson is on harp, but the focus remains on the songs and Gibson’s authoritative and convincing vocals. Highly recommended.

Here is Billy performing at the North Atlantic Blues Festival in 2007.

Charlie Woods Is More Than Lucky

A fixture on Beale Street playing the Hammond B-3, with whom legendary guitarist Calvin Newborn would often join, Charlie Wood has a new Inside Sounds release, Lucky, that brings a soulful, jazzy sophistication to the blues.


Through the magic of overdubbing, Wood plays virtually all of the instruments here aided by Kirk Smothers’ saxophones. The opening Can’t Teach That Stuff is a sizzling rocking boogie woogie where he talks about his musical life, including how Albert King took him on the road, with hot solos from Smothers on tenor and Wood on the B-3. It is followed by a nice down-in-the alley rendition of Percy Mayfield’s The River Invitation, with his evocative, smoking singing.


Echoes of Professor Longhair reverberate on Wood’s celebration of the Crescent City and his hopes for its survival with his faith in the human spirit, Never Gonna Stop New Orleans. What’s It Gonna Take is rollicking piano blues where he asks his woman what it will take to slow her down and get to her. Ray Charles’ Lonely Avenue is slowed down in a nice reworking while Ear Candy has a nifty lyric about telling one’s lover what she or he wants to hear.


There is a fine cover of Mose Allison’s One of These Days, with Wood sounding very comfortable handling the vocal and laying down some choice piano, while the closing rendition of W.C. Handy’s Beale Street Blues is a wonderful performance with Wood and his piano joined by Billy Gibson who adds some harp on this intimate sounding performance.


There is a funky ambiance throughout this and plenty of space for Wood’s keyboards and solid vocals. Wood also adeptly provided a full ensemble sound although the rhythm sounds a bit mechanical (although certainly better than a rhythm loop). Overall Lucky is a most enjoyable release.


This review originally appeared in the August 2007 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 296). I likely received my review copy from Inside Sounds.

Kirsten Thien's Blues and Soul Infused Pop

Singer- songwriter Kirsten Thien caught the R&B and blues bug while a student at Georgetown University, and after relocating to New York City, found she preferred the thrill of performing in public and abandoned a potentially lucrative career in banking and investment for a creative one in singing and songwriting. She formed a band and issued an album in 2001, then woodshedding on guitar and songwriting, issued a second recording. Now she has issued a third CD, Delicious (Screen Door Records), which has her backed by producer Erik Boyd on bass with the core being her road band of David Patterson (guitar), Johnny Pisano (bass) and Dylan Wissing (drums). Also present are session cats from her 2006 recording, Steve Holley (drums), Tommy Mandel (keyboard and Hammond organ), Kent Smith (trumpet), Andy Snitzer (saxophone) and Mike Freeman (vibraphone). Spice is added by the addition of Arthur Neilson (guitar), Billy Gibson (harmonica) and Hubert Sumlin (guitar) on some of the 11 selections here, eight or which she wrote or collaborated on.

Listening to this CD, I have mixed reactions. Musically there is plenty to like. There is a good mix of blues and blues-infused material and the band is pretty strong. Arthur Neilson is fine as usual and Sumlin lens his distinctive guitar. However, I am ambivalent about Thien as a singer. Not that there is anything forced about her performances. It is that her vocals sound sort of like how Olivia Newton John might have sounded like as a blues-oriented singer. One example is listening to enunciate that her man’s love is ‘delicious’ on the title track. To these ears it is similar to listening to cajun french sung with a Bronx accident. Even on the attractive opening truck, where Neilson and Sumlin trade riffs, “Love That’s Made to Share,” her phrasing is of a pop-oriented vocalist who also imparts plenty of passion in her singing. 

Nobody's Ever Loved Me Like You Do is a lovely rendered soulful ballad. Please Drive, with a nice stop-time groove, benefits from Sumlin’s distinct, quirky guitar as she affects a sultriness in her raspy, whispering styling here. Taxi Love, penned by Charlie Feldman and Jon Tiven, is a soul-infused number about getting it on in a yellow cab followed by the pop-oriented title track with its lyric about “eve came to adam with an apple and tempted him to take a little bite.” Ain’t That the Truth,” is a very attractive soul ballad and love song, followed the driving rendition of Treat ‘im Like a Man, has a pretty interesting lyric about treating her man with respect and as her best her friend as opposed to controlling his every move.

Ida Cox’s Wild Women Don’t Have the Blues, is done as a duet with harmonica Billy Gibbons’ harmonica accompaniment in addition to Thien’s vocal and acoustic guitar. There is a folkiness in the performance, but also the vocal might have benefited if Thien kept her vocal delivery relaxed throughout. A fresh arrangement graces her rendition of Willie Dixon’s I Ain’t Superstitious, and Neilson lays down a hot solo, although her vocal doesn’t sound convincing to these ears. Her ballad A Woman Knows, has an appealing country flavor while Get Out The Funk, Get Into the Groove, is a funk, dance number. The CD concludes with radio edited versions of Taxi Love and Treat ‘im Like a Man.

An attractive sounding recording of blues and blues-soul infused songs that has a definite appeal to it if not compelling as viewed as blues.


I received a review copy from a publicist for this release.