Review: Everybody’s got the blues … even Ozzy!

A whole truckload of new releases are out just in time for summer, and it seems like everybody’s got the blues.  Last week we took a listen to the newsy bluesy Mojo by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, this week a number of veteran artists seem to be following his lead into the blues.

It’s taken Steve Miller about 17 years to release a new album, and here we have Bingo!, a collection of blues and R&B covers.  It seems kind of weird that Miller would stage a comeback with an album of covers, but maybe he’s burned out as a songwriter.  Bingo! is a party record, full of hot guitar playing and feel-good blues rock.  Joe Satriani shows up for a guitar duel on the B.B. King warhorse “Rock Me Baby” and a handful of songs are highlighted by the harmonica work of the late Norton Buffalo, who died shortly after this album was recorded.  Another highlight is “Hey Yeah,” one of three songs penned by Austin’s Jimmie Vaughan.  Singer Sonny Charles, apparently now a permanent part of the Steve Miller Band, lends some raw soul that Miller’s own white-boy singing can’t provide.  Bingo! reminds me of that sanitized blues stuff Eric Clapton produced in the 1990s (From The Cradle, etc.) – not bad, not great but nowhere near the original stuff.  So I guess Bingo! works for most everyone except the old-timers.

MP3: “Hey Yeah” by the Steve Miller Band

True to its title, Memphis Blues provides the setting for former pop princess Cyndi Lauper‘s excursion into the blues.  Happily, Cyndi’s remarkable voice provides enough grit and character and variety to make Memphis Blues a worthwhile listen.  Guest performers like B.B. King, Allen Toussaint, Ann Peebles and Charlie Musselwhite lend some muscle to the proceedings, and for the most part Lauper chooses more obscure songs which can help give a fresher feel to a project like this.  Lauper’s voice cracks and gets a little shrill in places, but overall she manages to convey a genuine feeling for the music.  The highlights include her duet with Ann Peebles on Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ and Tumblin’,” and “Early In The Mornin’,” with Allen Toussaint giving it a Crescent City swagger.  I approached Cyndi’s cover of the Robert Johnson classic “Crossroads” (with guitarist Jonny Lang) with a little apprehension, but they manage to do something interesting instead of turning it into a joke.  Not bad, Cyndi.

MP3: “Rollin’ and Tumblin’ ” by Cyndi Lauper w/Ann Peebles

Your Sister’s (Record) Rack: Edgar Winter’s White Trash

Giving our big sister’s record collection a break for a few weeks, while we pull some out of my own stack.  Today we take a listen to one of my favorite live albums of all time, 1972’s Roadwork by Edgar Winter’s White Trash.  Winter is a stellar musician who grew up in Southeast Texas and with his brother Johnny left behind some scorching hot records in the late 1960s-early 1970s.  Johnny of course was the most popular as the 1960s waned – he became a guitar god with his incendiary performance at the Woodstock festival.  Little brother Edgar played sax and piano with Johnny at Woodstock, and he sang a couple of songs.

On the basis of that performance Epic Records signed Edgar to a recording contract and he put together White Trash, a soulful Southern roadhouse group made up of good ole boys from Texas and Louisiana.  When I was a kid I in the mid 1960s I had a paper route in Groves, Texas, and one of my stops was a place called the Black Kat Klub.  Many afternoons I could hear Johnny and Edgar’s band on the second floor above the club, every once in a while I’d see them while they were hanging out in back of the club.

Edgar cut one solo album, Entrance (1970) with brother Johnny’s band and a second, Edgar Winter’s White Trash (1971) with the hard-working roadhouse gang White Trash.  The guy who shared lead vocals (and played sax) was Jerry LaCroix, a Louisiana native who grew up in the Beaumont-Port Arthur area of Texas and who made a name for himself as one of the lead singers of the classic roadhouse band The Fabulous Boogie Kings.  LaCroix would co-write with Winter six of the 10 songs on the White Trash album and the two planned to go to Europe and burn Winter’s record company advance locating the “best musicians in the world.”

Ringo will turn 70 onstage

Ringo Starr will be the first ex-Beatle to turn 70 years old, and it will happen this summer.  Are you feeling old?  Not Ringo, apparently – on the night of his birthday, he’ll be onstage in New York City.

Celebrating his 70th birthday on July 7, Starr will perform that night at Radio City Music Hall with the latest edition of his All-Starr Band, featuring Edgar Winter, Gary Wright, Rick Derringer, Richard Page of Mr. Mister and Wally Palmer of the Romantics.  Ticket information isn’t available yet;  visit RadioCity.com or Ringo’s website for updates.

Starr’s latest album, Y Not— featuring a duet with fellow Beatle Paul McCartney, 67, was released on Jan. 12.

Ringo Starr official website