Artist:     Eric Gales

Album:     A Night on the Sunset Strip

Label:     Cleopatra Records

Release Date:     07/08/2016

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Making himself right at home last year at the Viper Room on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, blues-rock powerhouse Eric Gales lit up the place with his big smile and gregarious personality. His fiery guitar offerings almost set off the fire alarm. Captured in a professionally filmed and recorded CD/DVD package, the scintillating performance – a concise and entertaining set, so full of pure, life-affirming joy – isn’t glitzy or glamorous. Being from the “Dirty South,” as he refers to it, Gales seems at ease in such close quarters. His soulful, slow-burning readings of crowd favorites “Block the Sun” and “The Open Road” mesmerize the faithful. His searing solos, played with such reckless abandon, great feel and raw emotion, set souls ablaze. Jazzy keyboards and deep, smoldering grooves make “1019” just as enthralling, but with the jumping, up-tempo “Swamp,” and the swinging, strutting magnetism of “Make It There” and “The Change in Me,” Gales takes the crowd by storm. Finishing with infectiously funky “Good for Sumthin’” and a reimagined cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Miss You” that replaces its cool disco vibe with an earthy, more organic sensibility, Gales and company ride off into the sunset knowing full well they left the audience satisfied.

– Peter Lindblad