The Blues Foundation added a separate "blues-rock" category to its annual Blues Music Awards last year, a welcome move that recognizes and honors the popularity and influence of the genre on contemporary blues music. You've already see our choices for the best blues albums of the year, here are the Reverend's choices for the best blues-rock recordings of 2010.
1. Devon Allman's Honeytribe – 'Space Age Blues' (Provogue Records)
Photo courtesy Provogue Records
Space Age Blues isn't your typical blues-rock album, Devon Allman's Honeytribe infusing these songs with high-octane performances that remind of the Black Crowes and Blues Traveler, but taking it one step further, positioning blues-rock for a new decade and new century that still places a premium on six-string talents, and rewarding an artistic sense of adventure. Devon Allman's Honeytribe is making exhilarating, edgy music that is years ahead of its time. By the time the rest of us catch up, no doubt Allman and his merry pranksters will be making a different sort of trouble. In the here and now, however, if you like blues and you like rock, it's well worth your time to check out Space Age Blues.
2. Guitar Shorty – 'Bare Knuckle' (Alligator Records)
Photo courtesy Alligator Records
Some of these young pups coming up with dreams of being the next blues-rock chart topper should bow their heads and give props to a master of the genre, Mr. Guitar Shorty. The songs on Bare Knuckle hit your ears like a bluesy brawl, leaving the listener dazed and confused in their wake. There are enough screaming notes and tortured riffs in these grooves to satisfy any blues-rock guitar fan, while Guitar Shorty delivers just enough Chicago blues styled traditionalism to pacify all but the most hidebound old-school purist.
3. Jeff Beck – 'Emotion & Commotion' (Rhino Records)
Photo courtesy Rhino Records
Truthfully, you won't find much blues music on Emotion & Commotion, except for the scraps that Jeff Beck has managed to weld in at the edges of many of the songs. Representing yet another musical swerve in the lengthy and often times maddening career of one of rock's premiere guitarists, Beck utilizes the orchestra as a master conductor, embroidering his wandering fretwork in between the other stringed instruments to great effect. Although blues fans may be somewhat turned off, Emotion & Commotion is a fine album containing an imaginative and innovative blend of rock, blues, pop, jazz, and even classical music.
4. Joe Bonamassa – 'Black Rock' (J&R Adventures)
Photo courtesy J&R Adventures
In a phone interview with Joe Bonamassa, he said of Black Rock, "it's more of a rock record than a blues record. We're happy with the way that it came out. It has a raw, more youthful approach...I wanted to make a statement, we weren't just resting on our laurels, that we were doing something that we're proud of, something new." While the album certainly sounds like a modern rock record, it wears its blues roots proudly, and Bonamassa's guitar playing is nothing short of stellar. If you're not a fan of the man yet, Black Rock may get you there…it's not only Bonamassa's best work to date, it shows the growth and unpredictability of an artist not afraid of trying something new.
5. Mark Robinson – 'Quit Your Job, Play Guitar' (Blind Chihuahua Records)
Photo courtesy Blind Chihuahua Record
As the Reverend wrote in Blues Revue magazine, "given the diverse range of Robinson's musical experience, it should come as no surprise that Quit Your Job, Play Guitar offers a nuanced mix of blues, soul, and twangy roots-rock in its grooves… Robinson successfully balances bluesy ballads with mid-tempo rockers, all of which feature his taut fretwork. Expect big things in the future from this "self-employed" singer/songwriter." Perhaps the lowest-profile recording on this list, Mark Robinson is a talent worth your time in seeking out and listening to!
6. Moreland & Arbuckle – 'Flood'(Telarc Records)
Photo courtesy Telarc Records
Although they sound like a lot of other people, Moreland & Arbuckle sound like nobody so much as themselves. As illustrated by Flood, their music is referential without being derivative, original in its construction but almost avant-garde in its audacity. The result is an invigorating and energetic collection of songs that will appeal to a younger generation of music fans looking for the sincerity and authenticity that Moreland & Arbuckle bring by the truckload, while still managing to entertain us greybeard geezers that cut our teeth on Eric Clapton and Muddy Waters. It's a tightrope walk, to be sure, and one that Flood manages deceptively easily.
7. Nick Moss – 'Privileged' (Blue Bella Records)
Photo courtesy Blue Bella Records
Nick Moss's Privileged is definitely more blues-rock than Chicago blues-oriented, a natural evolution, perhaps, for the artist, or maybe just a fleeting flirtation with the music that Moss cut his eye teeth on. Like many of his (and my own) generation, Nick Moss came to the blues through the reverent reinterpretations of folks like Cream, Jimi Hendrix, the Allman Brothers Band, and others that took the blues, R&B, and soul and added them to the rock ‘n’ roll musical palette. Whether or not Privileged represents a permanent break from the band’s Chicago blues roots or not is a story yet to be told; suffice it to say that, given the talents of Moss and the Flip Tops, these songs burn like white phosphorus with passionate performances and gifted musicianship.
8. The Morlocks – 'The Morlocks Play Chess' (Popantipop Records)
Photo courtesy Popantipop Records
While blues purists would tear out their hair and run screaming from the room from the opening riffs of The Morlocks Play Chess, blues-rock fans less hidebound to tradition and possessing an impish, gleam-in-the-eye sense of humor will find these twelve white-hot lugnuts to be just their cuppa battery-acid etched spirits. The album doesn't sound so much like the Morlocks showed up at the Mississippi crossroads one dark and rainy night and struck a deal with the devil as much as they dropped by before the gig and bought a little extra fire, brimstone, and soul from Ol' Scratch...the result is entertaining, houserockin' music that is reverent in its own peculiar way.
9. The Nighthawks – 'Last Train To Bluesville' (Rip Bang Records)
Photo courtesy Rip Bang Records
With Last Train To Bluesville, however, the Nighthawks throw long-time fans a curveball with this acoustic set, recorded live in the studios of Sirius/XM satellite radio in the nation's capital. The ten-song collection of classic blues-and-rock classics features low-key, high-energy performances of songs by folks like Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, James Brown, and Sonny Boy Williamson, among others. After nearly forty years toiling in the blues music trenches, the Nighthawks know how to play this stuff in their sleep. You won't find them sleepwalking through these performances, though, the band infusing each song with a joyful energy.
10. Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King – 'Have Blues Will Travel' (Alligator Records)
Photo courtesy Alligator Records
The Reverend, reviewing Have Blues Will Travel for Blues Revue, said "after better than two decades playing together, the chemistry between blues guitarists Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King is undeniable. The two fretburners have developed a distinctive blues-rock sound that they seldom stray too far away from, and long-time fans will be relieved to know that Have Blues Will Travel follows this tried-and-true Kubek/King formula to a tee; that is, guitar-driven, houserockin' gutbucket blues delivered with Lone Star state panache. Few instrumentalists can tag-team a song like Smokin' Joe Kubek and Bnois King…the two men lifting Have Blues Will Travel above the morass of Stevie Ray-cloned guitarists to achieve higher altitudes of ambition."
