Willie Lomax Blues Revue
Best Blues Money Can Buy
Miami guitarist, songwriter and
producer Willie Lomax chose to return to Willie Michell’s
Royal Recording Studio in Memphis to follow up his acclaimed
Ribs Are Ready CD. Tampa vocalist and organist Shawn Brown
is with him again and rightly gets top billing on the
cover’s guest list, which also includes Memphians
Leroy Hodges (bass), Howard Grimes (drums – two
tracks) and Eric Gales (guitar – one track).
All ten tracks come from the Lomax pen,
with Brown and Ramona both lending a hand with the title
cut. Seven vocals – six by Brown, one talk-sung
by the leader – are tall-ended with three instrumentals.
Horns, led by Jerry Martini of Sly & The Family Stone
fame, are present on four selections.
The opening “Ransacked”
is built upon a “Midnight Hour” bassline and
is a strong piece of
sock-it-to me soul The slow-burning title track, the first
of three down-tempo songs here, keeps the quality high
and contains a fine guitar solo. Blues meets jazz on the
quartet outing “Come Down Mama” with Brown
getting ample chance to showcase his keyboard and vocal
skills, while “TKO” has traces of Mel Torme’s
“Coming Home”…..overall quality makes
this one well worth seeking out.
Rating – 8 – Jon Taylor
