Eddie Boyd - Sonet Blues Story series

This is a review that I wrote in Fall 2006 and published in the November-December 2006 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 288). I will be posting other reviews from this batch of reviews every few days in the next couple weeks.

Universal Music on the Verve label has released the second batch of CDs in its series, The Sonet Blues Story. These sides make available albums from the 1970s that were issued in Europe on the Sonet label although some were imported in the United States and some were even issued in the US, as GNP-Crescendo issued The Legacy of the Blues recordings stateside. This latest batch includes more from that series along with other albums that Samuel Charters had produced for Sonet. I will be posting these reviews every few days.

Eddie Boyd, the Chicago pianist-vocalist who is most known for the classic Five Long Years, had become an expatriate in 1965 to escape racism and married a Finnish woman in 1970 prior to recording his album for The Legacy of the Blues series with some Swedish musicians and drummer Ed Thigpen for a solid session.

The opening notes of Lovesick Soul evoke Boyd’s classic before he launches in a nice Chicago blues ably backed with Peps Persson on harp as Christer Eklund adds tenor sax riffs and the rest of the set is a varied set of solid performances. Eklund sounds fine on tenor on I’m a Fool, while Boyd’s skill as a songwriter is present on Kindness For Weakness with Persson on guitar embellishing the vocal with some nice playing, while Black, Brown and White has Boyd confronting the issue of discrimination in a song that updates Big Bill Broonzy’s similar song.

Boyd’s years in Europe kept him out of the spotlight in the US, except for a brief 1986 visit associated with an appearance at the Chicago Blues Festival, but musically fertile. In addition to this welcome reissue (with two alternate takes added), Boyd’s Complete Blue Horizon Recordings, including those with Fleetwood Mac, has been issued and available at specialty outlets.

I likely received my review copy from Jazz & Blues Report. Here is Eddie Boyd performing Five Long Years.