Joe Louis Walker JLW

Joe Louis Walker
JLW
Verve

Joe Louis Walker’s new Verve release may be his breakthrough album with respect to reaching beyond the core blues audience. The material and the production may a bit more accessible without losing the music’s edge.

Perhaps the rhythm is recorded a little heavier, and Rain on My Mind sounds similar to some Stones’ tune. Those not familiar with the blues world of today may think it is Bonnie Raitt, not Angela Strelhi, on the soulful duet, Hold On. Besides Strelhi, guest appearances are made by the Tower of Power Horns on a couple tracks, Branford Marsalis on the nice soulful Inner City Man, and James Cotton on an acoustic Going to Canada - bassist Henry Oden’s take on the Dust My Broom riff.

What is unusual about this album is that Walker did not pen most of the songs.. There’s the intense version of the oldie Need Your Lovin’ Every Day, and the excellent rendition of Otis Blackwell’s On That Powerline that Walker had been recorded for the Otis Blackwell tribute album on Shanachie that also appears here. Walker himself is the source of the best material. 12-Step Lovin’ (co-written with Laurie Basson) has a clever lyric analogizing love as an addiction with the 12-step treatments for addiction, while Alone is a nice jazzy, soulful blues. Walker throughout sings and plays with the conviction and imagination that has always characterized his recordings and performances.

While it may not be as varied or jazz-inflected as his previous Blues Survivor, JLW is still typical of a Joe Louis Walker recording. It is first rate.

This review originally appeared in the October 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (Issue 295). I likely received a review copy from the record company but may have purchased it. Here from over a decade after JLW, Walker is with Billy Branch doiig a Robert Johnson-Elmore James classic. 
 

Murali Coryell Is Very Live

I have been aware of guitarist-vocalist Murali Coryell since he signed to the now defunct independent label Big Mo. The son of pioneering jazz and fusion guitarist Larry Coryell, in recent years he has also played with Joe Louis Walker. Coryell has a new CD/DVD Live on (Shake-It-Sugar Records). The CD was recorded in May 2012 at Club Helsinki in Hudson NY while the DVD was captured for video at the The Roots and Blues Festival in Salmon Arms, British Columbia with Joe Louis Walker’s bassist Henry Oden and drummer Dorian Randolph along with John Nemeth’s keyboard player, Dave Fleschner, providing the backing. The band on the Club Helsinki recording includes Randolph on drums, bassist Vince Leggiere, Stacey Waterous on saxophone, Bill Foster on guitar and Cameron Melville for a couple selections on organ.

While there is some overlap in the songs on the CD and DVD, the performances are quite different (a saxophonist on the Club Helsinki performance certainly lends a different tenor (pun intended) to the performances as he rips a nice solo with  Coryell chording behind him on Tampa Red’s classic Love Her With A Feeling before Coryell launches into a nicely structured, yet fiery blues-rock solo. 

Coryell is an amiable singer and songwriter who has a way for putting words together as on his his originals Sugar Lips, as In the Room With Jimi. The latter number opens the CD and is heard in a different performance and is a bluesy-rock with a lengthy guitar jam with effects centered about the fact that as a 3 month year old kid Jimi Hendrix backstage at the Fillmore East. The performances on the live CD are quite varied ranging from the funky and soulful I Can’t Give You Up; the slow reflective bluesy ballad I Could've Had You, and the down in the alley blues, Softly Let Me Kiss Your Lips (with excellent organ from Cameron Melville and saxophone from Stacey Waterous, as well as Coryell’s searing guitar to complement his vocal). The afore-mentioned Sugar Lips. is a boogie-based rocker followed by a lengthy take on Tampa Red’s Love Her With a Feeling, with Coryell playing slide for a steamy rendition of this classic blues with some nice raspy saxophone as part of the mix. 

Its a nice and varied mix of originals and covers that is played in a lively fashion with straight blues mixed with some soul and rock in a manner that might be compared to Tommy Castro. The DVD performances cover some of the same musical territory and provide a sense of his live festival performance. If the performances are occasionally a bit lengthy, overall that is a minor point. Coryell is a solid singer and guitarist who has produced this solid and most enjoyable CD/DVD combination.

I received my review copy from a publicist. H ere is a video of Murali with Joe Louis Walker performing In the Room With Jimi.

Joe Louis Walker Was and Is a Blues Survivor

Going back through the archives at the Jazz & Blues Report I came across my review of Joe Louis Walker’s Blues Survivor that was on Verve/Gitanes. In light of my review of his just issued Blues Conspiracy, I thought it would be useful to look back 16 years to a review that appeared in the January/February 1994 Jazz & Blues Report (issue 188).


Joe Louis Walker’s first studio album in several years, Blues Survivor, is also his first for Verve, and it will hopefully provide him with recognition outside of the world of blues aficionados. Produced by Walker and John Snyder, this superb effort incorporates variety of musical sources for a thoroughly modern, yet tradition rooted, album of blues. Those familiar with Walker’s prior recordings won’t be surprised by his performances here, but will recognize how he has continued to hone his singing and guitar playing. His performances are thoughtful, and passionate, with a razor’s edge attack, displaying the ‘relaxed intensity’ that marks blues. With the exception of a great remake of Howlin’ Wolf’s Shake For Me (where he uses the Electric Flag’s arrangement for Killing Floor), Sarah Brown‘s Bad Thing, and Patrick Norris’ Put You Down Baby, the songs are originals by Walker or his long-time bassist, Henry Oden. The opening Help Yourself is a gospel-tinged number with an upbeat message and some well-played slide, with Lucky Peterson on organ and the Singing Corinthians (a gospel group Walker once was a member of) adding vocal backing.Walker’s Rainy Nights has a nice lyric set against the Ramblin’ on My Mind/Dust My Broom melodic motif, but taken at relaxed trotting tempo, and featuring an excellent slide solo with Walker sounding like Elmore James crossed with Robert Nighthawk. Henry Oden’s My Dignity, another outstanding performance, has melodic echoes of the jazz standard Walking and the Bobby Bland hit Ain’t Doing Too Bad and sports a great tenor sax solo by Richard Howell in addition to Walker’s tough vocal. These are high points on a terrific album full of top-notch performances. Blues Survivor shows Joe Louis Walker to be more than a survivor. He is equally adept as a writer, vocalist and guitarist, and one of the most compelling voices in the blues today.


16 years later, the last sentence of the review still holds true. I would say that Blues Survivor likely will be on any list of Joe Louis Walker’s best recordings. Given how good his recordings are, that says a lot. It appears Blues Survivor may be out of print but there are sellers on amazon that have new and used copies that you can check out (or you try ebay). Neither amazon nor itunes has this available for download.

If there is any justice it's Lady Bianca's time now

“Lady Bianca” Thornton has quietly been building a strong catalog of music for the nearly quarter of century. Conservatory trained, and initially a session singer, this writer first became aware of her with a surprising release on Telarc and a strong performance at the Pocono Blues Festival. She has continued to perform and with her partner, Stanley Lippitt, have continued to produce stunning blues recordings and performances that never have received the acclaim they deserved such as the excellent Through A Woman’s Eyes. Her latest effort, A Woman Never Forgets (Magic-O Records), hopefully will help her break through to a wiser audience.

On this disc, she is backed by an excellent band of guitarist Steve Gannon, bassist Henry Oden (of Joe Louis Walker’s greatest edition of the Boss Talkers and who played with countless legends like Percy Mayfield), and drummer Steve L. Eldridge (who adds tambourine) along with percussionist Jon Bendrich. Oshmin Oden (I assume Henry’s son) is on bass for two songs. It is a strong group with Lady Bianca handling all the keyboards, able to rock it as well as get down in the alley with guitarist Gannon first rate in his vintage sixties-sounding bluesy playing. The opening shuffle Lay Down Like You Mean It, displays her strengths with her rolling, rocking piano as well as her marvelous singing with her soulful delivery. What’s nice on He Just Do Me So Good, another marvelous collaboration with Lippitt that celebrates her man, is the jazzy touch in her piano playing with her understated vocal complemented by the spare piano making a superb performance. I’m in Love With You Baby, has a Latin groove as Gannon conjures up Carlos Santana with his guitar as her almost whispered vocal is spellbinding. Accompanied just by her piano, Sweetie Pie, is another blues celebrating her lover who sets her heart aflame, while Ugly Man Blues, has a lyric that Denise LaSalle would be proud of as she talks about her two men, one the pretty boy she sends out to work, but when she wants some real loving she goes over to another’s house, where she don’t want to see nothing but just feel him as they are loving which mixes a nice LaSalle styled rap with a celebration of her good loving ugly man. The title track has a bit of country and church feel as she tells he no good cheating man to get his coat on and don’t ask for forgiveness because a woman never forgets. The only cover is a slow reworking of an Elvis Recording, Heartbreak Hotel, which is transformed into a soulfully shouted slow blues dirge. She has such a way of making new songs of Elvis standards (she previously recorded Don’t Be Cruel) making them almost new songs as well as making them her own.

I could on and on about the other selections, but this is a terrific recording. Lady Bianca is on the same level as other, more celebrated female blues pianists-vocalists that I could name. This and other discs by her are available on cdbaby.com and merit your serious consideration. Her website is www.ladybianca.com.

The photo of Lady Bianca is from the North Atlantic Blues Festival (my memory is going so I do not know if 2004 or 2005). This review origin ally appeared in the March 2009 Jazz & Blues Report (issue 314).