EDITOR’S NOTE: Welcome to No Depression’s newest column — Best of the Blues. Each month we’ve asked long-time No Depression contributor, Grant Britt, to round up some of his favorite new blues records for your listening pleasure.
March serves up another righteous bundle of blues topped off by the Tedeschi Trucks Band's latest, Future Soul. With three BMA nominations this year, the 12-piece group sounds tighter and less jammy than previous incarnations. The album is not a reinvention, but a reassessment of their superpowers. Notable cuts include the funky “Crazy Cryin',” the scruffy, mild mannered rocker “Be Kind,” and the Allman-esque “Who Am I.” And elsewhere in the blues world, Selwin Birchwood's Electric Swamp Funkin' Blues is a swampy splash of down-and-dirty doings. Jonathan “Boogie” Long lives up to his middle name with raucous testaments of the get-down persuasion. And Alexis P. Suter features the Band keyboardist/accordionist Garth Hudson on a collection of searing, churchy, bloozy live performances.
Selwyn Birchwood — Electric Swamp Funkin' Blues, March 27
Fans of swamp funk will get their cauldron filled up with Selwyn Birchwood's latest, Electric Swamp Funkin' Blues, but don't expect a Tony Jo White-style gator chompin' sound to saturate every cut. Birchwood stirs the pot, blending soulful blues with back-alley stomp as well as bigfoot funk. The title cut demonstrates his grasp of swampfoot stomp, and although he does get Robert Randolph churchy toward the end, it's still not your traditional gospel, but more like wah-wah pedal Worship. Birchwood also gives his wah wah stompbox a workout on “Talking Heads,” taking a swipe at television commentators “programming the public with slogans and sound bites,” with a Hendrix homage in the middle. “Soulmate” is a showcase for Birchwood's B.B. Kingly style of down and dirty blooze: “don't give up don't get down your soulmate is waiting to be found.”
