After a brief hiatus during which we completely exhausted ourselves running the Soul of the Blues Festival, we're back with a special Long Island Blues edition of the Indie Round-Up.
INDIE ROUND-UP for August 11 2005
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Kerry Kearney, Secrets from the Psychedelta
Slide guitar master Kerry Kearney is both a fine bluesman in the classic tradition and a creative all-around musician who doesn't stick to any single sub-genre. In a mere 25 minutes, the Kerry Kearney Band's new CD covers more ground than many artists do in a whole career - yet it's all recognizable as the Kerry Kearney Band. The organ-drenched blues "Voodoo Down the River" and the equally keyboard-heavy "You're Makin' Me Sin" call to mind the Allman Brothers (whom Kearney has toured with) and Joe Cocker respectively, while the finger-picked "Passing Your Dying Eyes" is more like Eagles-meets-country-blues, with celestial mandolin by guest Jim Fleming.
"Gaslight" is a sweet-natured folky love song with Jack Licitra on accordion and vocals. "Planet Blues," a good-time hard-luck boogie in the fine old make-the-best-of-it tradition, highlights Tony Campo's considerable piano skills. Though Kearney is very much the front man at his shows, there's always plenty of room for the rest of the band to shine, and especially so on this CD. (Even the accompanying mini-documentary DVD focusses more on the rest of the band than on Kearney.)
Kearney's electric guitar dominates the original blues "Really Ruined It Baby," where you can hear how, working with a familiar electric-blues palette, he's developed a virtuoso artistic style very much his own, whether he's playing slide, Allman-style electric leads, or, as in "Sidewalks of New York," a sped-up Mississippi John Hurt picking style.
Available here.
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Tommy Keys, 2 Left Hands
Tommy Keys has done his part to preserve the traditions of barrelhouse boogie and stride piano at concerts all over Long Island for some time now. His first solo CD covers Pinetop Perkins, Otis Spann, Jimmy Reed and more, and also features five first-class originals, including the solo pieces "TK Boogie" and "Two Left Hands Boogie." Though devoted to historical piano styles, Mr. Keys is no slouch as a singer either, lending his warm tenor to the original blues tunes "Rosa Lee" and "Swamper John," sounding remarkably like fellow Long Islander Billy Joel on the ballad "Help You Understand," getting down and dirty on Thunder Smith's "Cruel Hearted Woman" and waxing lyrical on an out-of-place but loving cover of the Allmans' "Sweet Melissa."
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