Red House Records artist: Jorma Kaukonen - Ain't In No Hurry - New Release review

I just received the newest release (February 17, 2015), Ain't In No Hurry, from Jorma Kaukonen and it warm and soothing. Opening with a laid back version of classic Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out, featuring Jorma on vocal and guitar, Myron Hart on bass, Justin Guip on drums and Larry Campbell on mandolin and fiddle. A loose folk country jam creates a very nice opener. The Other Side Of The Mountain has a rockier but acoustic feel with Campbell and Jorma trading riffs. Woody Guthrie's Suffer Little Children To Come Unto Me has a distinctive Jorma/Dead sound with a cool recurring guitar riff. In My Dreams is a quiet acoustic ballad featuring Jorma, Barry Mitterhoff on mandolin and Myron Hart on bass. Very nice! Sweet Fern is a true country classic with a waltz rhythm, my last time hearing it was on the Porter Wagoner show. Joined by Teresa Williams on vocal, and with Campbell on lap steel it definitely has a early country feel and performed much more cleanly than on Porters show. Smooth! Title track, Ain't In No Hurry, is back more in what I would consider more of a pure Jorma sound backed by Campbell on steel this has classic lines with a steel stinger. Depression Era track, Brother Can You Spare A Dime, has a real nice rag feel with only Jorma and Mittenhoff. A fresh feel and cleanly picked, this is one of my favorites on the release. Where There's Two There's Trouble has a simple two step rhythm and features a duet with Teresa Williams. A fuller band with Guip, Hart and Campbell, this track almost takes a full country blues gallop. With a Gary Davis like style with some swing, The Terrible Operation really develops a sweet groove. Campbell and Jorma really do a nice job instrumentally and Guip adds an especially nice punch. With solid radio potential, Bar Room Crystal Ball is a straight forward Jormarocker with cool mando riffs by Mitterhoff and steel riffs from Campbell. The release is wrapped by Jorma alone on vocal and guitar singing ballad, Seasons In The Field.

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DAVE RAY (Koerner, Ray & Glover) "Legacy" this SUN, 12/07 on NPR Weekend Edition

DAVE RAY    The late songwriter and guitarist's legacy remembered this Sunday, December 7  on NPR Weekend Edition, click here for regional air times   LEGACY,  a deluxe 3-CD package with 32-page booklet, is out now on Red House Records A collection of rare and unreleased recordings from 1962 - 2002 from an American Blues Master    “Hopefully this collection does what it set out to do; illustrate just what an amazingly gifted musician and vocalist Dave was, and how wide he rode through the musical spheres.” - Tony Glover (Koerner, Ray & Glover)   December 5, 2014:  One of the first white artists to study and learn the then little-known blues tunes from the 20s, 30s and 40s and part of the Minneapolis folk and blues revival that spawned Bob Dylan, Dave "Snaker" Ray brought an enthusiasm and raw, raunchy earthiness to his performance style which set the stage for artists that followed. Koerner, Ray & Glover’s recordings were enormously influential among their fellow musicians, with artists from David Bowie and John Lennon to Bonnie Raitt, Lucinda Williams and Beck citing them as an influence. Ray's career, celebrated on Legacy, a three-CD collection of rare and unreleased songs by the influential acoustic bluesman painstakingly compiled by Ray’s longtime bandmate/collaborator Tony Glover, will be featured on NPR WEEKEND EDITION this Sunday, December 7.  The piece will also be archived online at http://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-sunday/.   NPR's Jim Bickel speaks to Tony Glover about Legacy, a 10-year-in the-making tribute to his friend and former bandmate. The 55-song collection features a 32-page booklet with rare photos and extensive liner notes and additional info by Glover. Legacy spans Ray's career, starting in the 1960s in Minneapolis, MN’s West Bank neighborhood with “Spider” John Koerner and Tony Glover  through his subsequent collaborations, solo albums and untimely death on Thanksgiving, 2002.    To me he was a brother from another family – the family of sound. He brought a vitality to the blues that the scholars who’d been on the scene couldn’t muster,” Glover says.     Along with live recordings and rarities, Legacy includes selections from out-of-print recordings including Ashes in My Whiskey (Rough Trade) and One Foot in the Groove (Tim /Kerr Records).  Unless noted, the tracks on Legacy are previously unreleased and include performances taken from a wide variety of mediums including reel-to-reel analog tapes, old sound board mix cassettes and live broadcasts.    “Since Dave was doing Lead Belly and I was working on my Sonny Terry riffs, people thought it would be a good idea to put us together,” Glover recalls. “We both had very similar tastes in blues, preferring the deep, down-home raw numbers. After the initial learning-by-rote process we made a point of going for the feel of a song, trying to capture its aura rather than doing a note-by-note cover.” It was a musical partnership that ended up lasting four decades.   Since the album's release, the Twin Cities declared November 9 to be Dave Ray Day; that evening, friends and fellow musicians attended a sold-out tribute concert at the Minnesota History Center which included a display of Ray's memorabilia, hand-written lyrics and two of his guitars. The City of St. Paul held a street-naming ceremony on November 24 dedicating a stretch of Franklin Avenue as Dave Ray Avenue. QUOTES   "Nobody has topped them for feel or drive or humor or sheer affection for their folk-blues forebears like Leadbelly and Memphis Minnie - four stars." - Rolling Stone   "As a trio, Koerner, Ray and Glover brought a raucous, highly rhythmic approach to the acoustic blues that effectively captured the essence of their forbears." - Playboy   "The instrumental work on here is just plain awesome...and really puts up a case for them being reclassified from upstart revivalists onto American roots music greats." - Folk Roots (U.K.)     RED HOUSE DISCOGRAPHY   Dave Ray Legacy: Rare and unreleased recordings 1962 - 2002 from an American Blues Master  (2014)    Koerner, Ray & Glover  Blues, Rags, and Hollers (re-issue of the classic 1963 release with four bonus tracks)  Lots More Blues, Rags, and Hollers (re-issue of the 1964 classic)  The Return of Koerner, Ray & Glover (re-issue of the 1965 classic)

Red House Records artist: Dave Ray - Legacy - New Release Review

I just received the newest release (October 28, 2014) Legacy, from Dave Ray and I have to say the intensity of these recordings is staggering. I've been listening to the raw blues since I was a kid and am really only familiar with Ray's work in passing. This is a 3 disc collection of blues tunes with roots in the 20's, 30's and 40's which for the most part has never been widely available. Disc one is primarily solo work, recorded between 1962 and 1987. 16 tracks beginning with Leroy Carr's Alabama Women and you would swear that this is a clean recording of an original artist from the time. Excellent! Included on this disc are a number of tracks written by Ledbelly, Brownie McGhee, Skip James, Sleepy John, Muddy, Blind Blake, originals by Ray and concluding with an incredible version of Fenton Robinson's Loan Me A Dime. Outstanding! The second disc covers 1988 to 1994 and the Ray and Tony Glover Years. 21 tracks on this disc are a little more polished but retain that raw energy. Covering Jimmy Rogers, Muddy, Memphis Minnie, Robert Petway, Tommy Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Memphis Slim and Mississippi Fred these tracks are real and raw. Excellent! Just listen to the second track on this disc, Muddy Water's  Long Distance Call and you hear a pure artist, doing another artist's track and making it sound original and vibrant! Blind Willie McTell's Statesboro Blues has a life of it's own with real blues syncopation... not modern timing. Very very nice! Disc 3 has a cleaner more modern recording sound but the blues is still raw and real. These 18 tracks were recorded between 1995 and Rays death in 2002. Opening with Tommy McClennan's Shake 'em On Down , Ray has you in the palm of his hand. Beautiful harp trimming on top of a rhythmic guitar with true blues vocals. Super! The countryified Coal Man, written by Peg Leg Howell has real life. Percy Mayfield's My Mind Is Trying To Leave Me is excellent! Further tracks by Big Joe Williams, Bill Monroe, Percy Sledge, Joe Callicott, Blind Blake, Bobby Womack, Big Bill Broonzy, and the great Arthur Crudup make this one of the absolute best "modern roots of blues" releases that I may have ever heard. Ray on 6 and 12 string acoustic and electric guitars and vocals accompanied by really hot harp work by Tony Glover. There is a terrific 32 page booklet with insight into the Ray's life and recordings, photos, track listing and commentary. This is one of the true raw early style blue gems that I have had the privilege to review since starting my report a number of years back. This is an excellent collection and I highly recommend it.

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Red House Records artist: Ray Bonneville - Easy Gone - New Release Review

I just received the newest release, Easy Gone, from Ray Bonneville and it's interesting and poetic. Opening with Who Do Call The Shots, Bonneville sets the ground work for what proves to be an interesting, story telling journey. Backed by only bass by Gurf Morlix and drums by Geoff Arsenault, Bonneville weaves his tale with and interesting intertwining of musical sounds and eerie almost supernatural guitar howls. Very nice. Shake Off My Blues has a easy Ben E King/R&B kind of sound with a twist of island rhythm and steel guitar. Where Has My Easy Gone has a really nice earthy feel not unlike some contemporary Ry Cooder stuff. Love Is Wicked has a real folk quality along the lines of Merle Travis. Bonneville adds some cool guitar riffs as well as nicely nested harmonica lines creating one of the coolest tracks on the release. When I Get To New York has a bit of a blues romp to it with an interesting underlying guitar rhythm. Bonneville again steps up on harp and shows a unique style in his own presentation. Bonneville makes his own niche with this music similar to what JJ Cale has done with his. Lone Freighters Wail is a more straight forward folk ballad and also includes Will Sexton on bass, Rick Richards on drums, Richie Lawrence on piano and Mark Norvel on backing vocal. This track is very solid and nicely appointed with easy vibrato guitar and complimentary harp work. Very nice. On Hank Williams' classic So Lonesome I Could Cry, Bonneville adds his own twist taking away all together the 3/4 timing and making it almost a garage/Lou Reed feel. Never losing it's sentimental honest feel, this is quite a successful interpretation. Mile Marker 41 has an easy country folk feel. Comparisons to Dylan would not be at all out of line in delivery. Wailing guitar sounds add nicely to the overall ambiance of the track. Wrapping the track is Two Bends In The Road, an easy acoustic ballad with only Bonneville on vocal and guitar. A nicely constructed track with a Richie Havens kind of feel is a really nice choice to conclude a nicely constructed release.  

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