What I want to know is where did a 16-year-old boy get the voice of a Blues singer at least four times his age? This young man Ryan Perry sings with the authoritative growl of someone whose been playing the Blues circuit for more decades then Ryan has been alive. The thing is, he doesn't just sing well, he sings with a conviction and a passion that I've not heard in players with twice his experience and four times his years. Sure on the slower songs his voice shows its lack of training, but goodness the kids only sixteen. Think what he's going to sound like with a couple more years of professional singing under his belt.
Musically a trio can be somewhat limited, there's only so much that you can do with bass, drums, and guitar. So it's a pleasant surprise to hear The Homemade Jamz Blues Band mix it up as much as they possibly can. True they're helped out by their dad laying down some really nice harmonica playing on a few tracks and producer Miles Wilkinson adding rhythm guitar on four cuts, but in the end the trio are the ones who created the music everybody is playing. Take the ninth track on the CD, "Jealous" for instance. It has a low down, down and dirty, funk like groove, running under Ryan's choppy attack on the guitar that the bass and drums carry with a loose tightness that I haven't heard rhythm sections with twice the experience carry off.
I've been saying - better than people with more years and experience then these kids have been alive, but the most amazing thing about this disc is how quickly you forget you are listening to a band whose drummer won't legally be allowed in bars for at least ten more years. From Ryan's opening challenge at the start of the disc, "Ladies and Gentlemen, are you all ready for the blues?" to the last notes of their cover of John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom" that ends the disc, this is a rough and ready collection of really well played Blues. Period.
Article comments
1 - Joanie
The added bonus of youth is that they have lots of time to refine and improve.
As for trios, I totally disagree. If you have the RIGHT trio, you can get a whole lotta sound. Sound with major depth. Just sayin'.