Bman's Blues Report

 I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Better Days , from Cliff Stevens and it's it's a cool blues rocker. Opening with Better Days , a solid rocker with a good SRV style swagger, features Cliff Stevens on lead guitar and vocal, Serge Dionne on bass, Eric Sauve on keys, and Sam Harrisson on drums. With a "southern rock" flavor, No Room Left has a nice ABB like feel ... I can almost hear Chuck Leavell on piano. With a strong radio melody and select guitar riffs, this is a strong radio contender. Another serious radio contender is Light Of An Angel with a pure pop ballad melody. Stevens does a nice job as vocal front man and paired with Kim Feeney on harmony and a melodic slide solo, pure radio gold. Bluesy ballad, I Love You Still , is my favorite track on the release with cool blues progressions and a strong melody. Stevens lets the music flow with some more aggressive soloing and fluid runs. Very nice. Blues shuffle, True Love has a great f...

I just had the opportunity to review the most recent release, Nobody But You , from Cliff Stevens and it's smooth radio style rock with solid guitar riffs. Opening with How Long , Cliff Stevens hits the road running with a solid entry checking all the boxes. A cool blues rocker with solid vocals and a low key, understated boogie beat. Title track, Nobody But You , has a cool, swinging pace with a nice walking bass line courtesy of Domenic Romanelli, joined by Eric Suave on keys, and Sam Harrisson on drums. Stevens steps out pretty nicely on guitar on tis one in a Robbin Ford style. Very nice. Little By Little is a smooth paced bluesy ballad with solid vocals, a nice melody, nicely paired backing vocals by Kim Feeney and a flowing guitar solo by Stevens. My favorite track on the release is instrumental, Cry Baby with it's walking bass line, aggressive lead guitar and fat organ solo. Very nice. Come Back is a real nice rocker with a straight up bottom and features Stevens...

Cliff Stevens has been playing guitar professionally for longer than he sometimes cares to admit, around 35 years to be vaguely precise. Like so many blues musicians before him, he spent much of his career displaying his significant talents in relative obscurity as a sideman with various travelling groups. Crowds ranged anywhere from 14,000 at the Montreal International Jazz Festival to 1,400 at the Medley Club in Montreal to 14 drunks in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Like a moth to a flame, Stevens was drawn irresistibly to the genre. He recalls learning to play at 13 jamming for hours to slow blues in a coffee house in his home town of Montreal that was a hot bed for Canadian guitarists like Frank Marino of Mahogany Rush and being influenced by the foremost British and American blues rock guitarists of the day. “Clapton just jammed all night long and I was blown away,” Stevens says of a Cream concert that he attended in Montreal in 1968. “I then saw Johnny Winter in 1970 and memorized ...