Artist: Joe Louis Walker, Bruce Katz & Giles Robson
Album: Journey to the Heart of the Blues
Label: Alligator Records
Release Date: 10.26.2018
Journey to the Heart of the Blues features three positive blues masters. Anything with the wonderful Joe Louis Walker on guitar is bound to be a winner; add US keyboard ace Bruce Katz and a superbly inventive pinch of UK blues-harp player Giles Robson to the mix and you have an album that is solidly anchored in traditional R&B, with boiling boogie-woogie piano rolls, guitar shuffles and wailing harmonica. The 11 tracks included feature many old standards from the blues cannon including “Mean Old Train,” “Hell Ain’t But a Mile and a Quarter,” (where Katz is stunning), and “Chicago Breakdown.”
From the very start, this is an album that demands and merits attention. Robson’s harp has clear flashes of Little Walter, Sonny Boy and all the command that might be expected from an advanced player of the instrument in the blues genre. Walker is his usual self, full of delicious licks and fretwork that comes straight from the heart of the music. Katz is, as always these days, a piano revelation, burning it up when needed before taking the time to slip in some soulful syncopation that never seems to upstage the other guys and yet, inexplicably, manages to do just that from time to time.
However, this is clearly a composite job, a collaboration between three blues players who each have a place and know exactly how to work together with no real need for anyone to try to outshine another. And, despite the temptation that must surely exist to simply excel with the competitive musicianship here, each of the three players succeeds in bringing something fresh, full of flavour and ringing with ability and style to the table , while never losing sight of the strength of ensemble playing that shines and sparkles. An excellent bit of old-school R&B and a release to catch at the first opportunity.
—Iain Patience
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