Artist: Chicago Blues Reunion
Title: Buried Alive In The Blues
Genre: Blues Rock
Format: CD/DVD Set
Label: Out The Box Records
Chicago Blues Reunion Website
The Chicago Blues Reunion wants to make sure you are Buried Alive In The Blues when you attend one of their concerts. Not just anyone can pull off something so powerful yet this band of wily veterans makes it look like a picnic.
With heavy hitters like Barry Goldberg, Harvey Mandel, Nick Gravenites, Tracy Nelson, Sam Lay, and others filling out the lineup of this blues-rock gathering, you get to hear some of the best live music you ever gave your ears a chance to hear.
This CD offers 14 excellent tracks that typify the blues-rock sound. There are three tracks in particular that blew me away. “GM Boogie” is an amazing performance with Goldberg pumping out some phenomenal sounds for the Hammond B3 and Mandel yankin’ those strings as if he came out his mama with a guitar in his hand. It is definitely a blues-rock boogie to remember.
“New Truck” with Tracy Nelson’s pipes is a real special tune; it is a real fun listen. The words and music become one with her splendid vocal style and Mandel’s guitar cuts like a brand new box of razor blades. Then the tour de force is Mandel’s classic rendition of “Snake.” I heard his studio version of this tune but this live cut outdistances just about anything I have heard him perform, whew! The slide playing is amazing and he gets some cool fuzz tones and feedback as well.
Then you get double the pleasure double the fun with a DVD that interviews band members and legends such a B.B. King, who reminisces about how his guitar Lucille got her name. Buddy Guy talks about the old days when all the white boys would show up, like Bloomfield and Butterfield, at the old all-black nightclubs on the east side of Chicago.
Guy said when they walked in everyone thought they were the cops because they were the only white cats in the entire joint but once everyone realized who they were after a while people laughed and accepted them as one of their own. They had to prove themselves first performing with the already established black artists like Guy. I guess they cut the mustard as shortly thereafter the clubs began to integrate and the black musicians found a white audience that did not know they existed.
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
Keef,
This post has been digitally replicated over at Advance.net, a place affiliated with about 10 newspapers around the country.
One such site is here.
Also please let your contact know, if you had one, that this article, is published at one more place. That helps to show they get two?, three? for the "price" of one.
Thank you.
Temple Stark