Igor Prado's Strong Brazilian Blues Moves

The blues certainly developed an audience and players around the world. Guitarist Igor Prado hails from Brazil and his latest recording (and my introduction to his music) is “Watch Me Move” (Chico Blues). I purchased this from bluebeatmusic.com, where they succinctly describe this as “They make the kind of rockin blues with a traditional approach you used to be able to find here in the US.........This LIMITED EDITION release features strong singing, super song selection and SCORCHING guitar.” Not an inaccurate couple of sentences.

Guitarist and vocalist Prada, along with brother Yuri on drums, Rodrigo Mantovani, bass and Denilson Martins on saxophones, mixes hard modern blues and Memphis Soul with some ripping guitar (fans say of Johnny Moeller’s wild playing will go for Prada’s playing here and he is a pretty strong vocalist. Some pretty straight covers of “Knock on Wood,” and “Signed, Sealed and Delivered,” along with rearranging the old Ray Charles stomp recording “Messaround,” and reworking as if The Power Station did it as a blues. The title track is one of Junior Wells’ funk numbers, amiably take on Lil Bob’s “I Got Loaded,” while “Gene’s Groove,” is a hot organ instrumental allowing Martins to showcase his robust tenor sax while Igor Prado showcases his jazzier chops, while the closing “Ice Man Groove,” is a rocking funky instrumental that is clearly inspired by the late Albert Collins who seems probably Prado’s greatest influence as a guitarist and who would be proud to have inspired such a solid musical offspring. Occasionally, Prado’s accent can be heard in his vocals but he sings with authority and never sounds forced. As Charlie at Bluebeat Music said, “Watch Me Move,” “features strong singing, super song selection and SCORCHING guitar.” This is a recording I will be returning to again and again and I give this a big thumbs up.

For FTC purposes, I purchased this CD.