Music Review: Bryan Lee - Katrina Was Her Name - Page 2

Bryan gets the show rolling with a rockabilly-styled rendering of Willie Dixon's "29 Ways." Led by Lee's biting axe, saxman Gordon Beadle and Katz follows with some equally hot solos. Kim Wilson's "Don't Bite The Hand That Feeds You" provides both Lee and Katz to stretch out to some shuffle blues. The pace picks up again to the old Bobby Parker tune "Barefootin'," and just like the original, you can twist the night away to it.

"My Baby Done Quit Me" is a nice, early r&b flavored number. On the Lee-penned "Blues Singer", Bryan sings about the first time he heard Freddie King then proceeds to whip out a solo that's a dead ringer for Freddie.

"Her Name Was Katrina," is a sparse, acoustic guitar/dobro ode to the despair that the storm left behind to the Crescent City. In it, he sings of the devastation in plain terms so that no one listening to this song many years from now will forget what happened and when it happened.

"Take It Like A Man" is another jump blues nugget, this time from the fifties r&b singer Chuck Willis, and Lee gives it both a great vocal and guitar rendering. "Lowdown And Dirty" couldn't be described any better. Lee shows off a hard rockin' blues style slide that calls Allison to mind.

"Ain't Nobody's Business" showcases Lee's and his band's ability to cover a slow blues jam number, featuring some impassioned blues wailing by Gordon Beadle. "Why Did You Lie To Me" is another blues shuffle, but in more of an r&b style. A remake of TV Slim's 1957 hit "Flat Foot Sam" sports a funky, New Orleans-style rhythm common out of that region in the late fifties and early sixties.

Lee's own "Bethany Jane" is another lean, acoustic number, this time a tribute to his bride-to-be. The closer "Don't Joke With The Stroke" works Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues" bass riff into a fun time by each band member, who gets their turn to strut their stuff.

With Katrina Was Her Name, Lee delivers another solid effort, even as it sounds effortless coming from an old pro like him. As Robillard plainly states at the beginning of the liner notes he provided for this record, "if you're not familiar with Bryan Lee by now, you should be."

Article Author: Pico

Musical musings by Something Else! "We're not saying this is the best music ever; we're just saying...

Visit Pico's author page — Pico's Blog