Bman's Blues Report

I Just received the newest release, I Like It Just Like That , from Franco Paletta and it's really tasty! Opening with Oh Baby , a groovin' blues with a strong walking blues bass line from Timmer Blakely, really rich vocals from Paletta and scorching guitar riffs from JT Thomas. Born To Please is a boppin funk blues with a call and response between Paletta and Thomas. Addition of horns from Joe McCarthy (trumpet), Scott Franklin (tenor sax), Jeff Homan (alto sax) this track moves! Thomas really gets the opportunity to show off a bit n this track and his playing is very enjoyable. On When She Do That Thing She Do , Paletta breaks out the harp for some warm riffs and Steve Kerin adds some crisp keyboard work leading up to very clean solos from Paletta and Thomas. On retro blues rocker, She's My Little Girl , Jonathan Barber sets up a solid drum pattern and the band "Twists" into blues land. The guitar riffs on this track are hot with cool double stop action and ro...

I just received a copy of the new release from Franco Paletta and the Stingers called "Can't Kick Love". The band is made up of Franco Paletta on Vocal and Harp, Timmer Blakely on Bass, David Ward on Guitars, Jon Beyer on Drums, Steve Kevin on Piano and Organs, John Soller on Hammond B3. This is a tight little package of blues mostly in the upbeat style (call it what you will...not that good with definitions). All I know for sure is it's put together well, has great instrumentals and vocals. There are some real stand out harp, piano and guitar soloing on this recording disbursed throughout. I know it's the lazy mans way out but I'n not often a man of a lot of words... ok...let me rephrase that. I may go off for a while but music is subjective. Rather than tell you that I liked each song individually, I'll say I wasn't real keen on one song, Southbound but the rest of the recording was really good. The stand out track for me is "My Baby's Leavi...