Artist: Doyle Bramhall II
Album: Shades
Label: Provogue
Release Date: 10.05.2018
His dad ran with Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan and played drums for Lightnin’ Hopkins. So these may be the last Shades of song you’d ever expect from a man instinctive to the sounds of Texas blues and roadhouse rock. Doyle Bramhall II played guitar with the remains of Double Trouble himself, but he’s also been involved with Roger Waters, Elton John, T Bone Burnett, and quite a few other contrasting artists. On top of that, he’s been Eric Clapton’s guitar partner for over twelve years.
Bramhall draws on vast experience, yet he comes across like no one else on his fifth solo album, which builds wonderfully on the design of 2016’s Rich Man. He’s been busy, and now he’s on a major roll. Adventurous, exhilarating, and even daunting and romantic at times, these songs push rock music into uncharted territory like an amusement park’s attractions push people to their limits.
To open, Bramhall’s sharp eye for the provocative collides with his own views in “Love and Pain,” a fluid rocker that agonizes over, and pounds out a message about violence and guns. When the strange “Hammer Ring” strikes, the song’s spellbinding beat nearly masks Bramhall’s oblique fixations. But then he pierces the proceedings with a guitar solo shot straight as an arrow.
Bramhall counts these songs among his most personally comfortable, yet his reach obviously extends across cultures and generations. Clapton joins him on “Everything You Need,” adding a second, one-of-a-kind voice on ax to a catchy piece of modern soul swiped with ragged blues. The ballad “Searching for Love” presents a tender duet between Bramhall and the incomparable Norah Jones, moving along on a lushly melodic bed, the vulnerability in each of their voices cut with shards of grit. Austin’s Greyhounds join the fray for “Live Forever,” their hair-down-bashing alongside Bramhall’s crew (bassist Chris Bruce, multi-instrumentalist and string arranger Adam Minkoff, and drummers Carla Azar and Abe Rounds) a perfectly spikey match.
The entire Tedeschi Trucks Band appears to surprising effect for the album’s finale. “Going, Going Gone” offers a taste of Bob Dylan and The Band’s greatness by way of a delicate, brooding performance that honors the originators, these players, and the featured artist all at once. Each and every one of these many altered shades angles towards a very bright future for Doyle Bramhall II.
—Tom Clarke
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