New Releases 2011 on Underworld Records:

Too Slim and the Taildraggers - April 19th, 2011

If Tim "Too Slim" Langford only played slide he would slither around most other blues guitarists and put a ferocious bite on their pride. However, as the sole six-string slinger, main songster and lead singer of the power trio he founded in 1986 in Seattle, Washington, he is a total force of nature. Leaving musical tracks for others to try and follow with now 16 albums and countless gigs, he remains as untamed and menacing as ever.

New bassist Polly O'Keary and drummer Tommy Cook provide bone-rattling punch as Langford makes his estimable presence known via eyeball-melting slide stomps, melancholy ballads and butt-kicking rockers on 12 far-reaching, original tunes. "Stoned Again" shows his razor slide in open D, a tuning he owns along with Blind Willie Johnson and Elmore James as he makes a startling pitch for justice regarding getting high with, "The devil drinks his whiskey and Jesus drinks his wine." The melancholy minor key blues of "Daddies Bones" is a bracing change of pace with Joe Doria providing Hammond B-3 pads for Langford to pick straight lead while he sings a brooding tale about a wayward father that seems to reference the recent movie Winter's Bone. The big arena rock sound of "Can't Dress It Up" would give Tom Petty a run for his money as Langford uses his signature vocal growl to dramatic effect in contrast to the rousing horn hits and anthemic chorus. "In Your Corner" continues the fist-pump with a rocking Memphis boogie groove and vocal hooks that stick to the ribs while Langford unleashes his slide.

Guest soul man Curtis Salgado brings his vox bono to preach understanding on "I Heard Voices," a smooth slice of funk that Langford gooses with tart lead licks that leads into "Everybody's Got Something,'" a heartfelt plea for unconditional love with, "Everybody's got something to give." Langford next delivers a pointed rant on the insouciant lazy funk of "Workin'" about the current economic plight of the working folk that evolves into an angry, runaway train of a rave-up in the coda before fading. "She Sees Ghosts" is another funky slice of R&B driven by catchy hooks and fills as Langford employs an inventive tale about a dog who "sees things that nobody sees" as a creative metaphor for his own fears.

"Inside of Me" extends his uneasiness musically with a minor key, medium rocker featuring Doria on keys while Langford wearily expresses his consuming passion for his woman with the restrained, resigned line of "I'm inside of her, she's inside of me." With a different take on love and a riff that acknowledges SRV, Langford rocks the shuffle on "As the Tears Go By," snapping off prickly fills and a solo that is Texas as well as blues-approved. The title track visits grunge city and finds Langford stepping back with his guitar while his rip-picking son Austin Elwood acquits himself with the exuberance and angst of youth as the father emotes with chilling passion about his demons. Closing with a melodic and moving instrumental named for the Mexican town where he honeymooned, "Bucerius" also pays homage to the instrumental bands that came out of the Northwest in the early sixties.

Langford has used the evocative images of cattle and human skulls as talismans on his album art while his music laughs in the face of life's challenges. In addition, it exudes the deepest blue feelings that flow through it like the muddy Mississippi. It is an experience often imitated and rarely replicated, but in great evidence throughout Shiver.

Dave Rubin, 2005 KBA winner in Journalism

Lloyd Jones - April 19th, 2011

Like the troubadours of old who spread the news from town to town, the solo artist carries the traditions of his culture in his head and his hands. Country bluesman Lloyd Jones is at once a vital link to the glorious past and a modern interpreter of the "Chaucers" of the blues like Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell and Mississippi John Hurt on his appropriately titled Highway Bound. A virtuoso fingerpicker who plays and sings as easily as breathing in and out, he has produced a magnificent work of musical integrity and spiritual sustenance. 

Jones leads off his generous 16-song set with one of his three original compositions. "Travelin' On" immediately stakes his claim as an effortlessly driving rhythm machine to accompany his deceptively casual vocals that betray decades of soaking up the blues and living life. "Careless Love," the W.C. Handy classic blues ballad, is dynamically rendered as a vigorous shuffle. It is sung with such conviction as to be read as autobiographical while Jones seamlessly intertwines walking bass lines and chordal harmony. "When I'm Gone" by Elizabeth Cotton takes a side trip from the Deep South to the southeast Piedmont area with a wistful vocal complemented by the gently rolling patterns that Ms. "Libby" perfected. A brisk shuffle provides sensuous propulsion on John Brim's winking "Ice Cream Man" with compadre Charlie Musselwhite adding sweet, fluid harp fills under and around the double entendre lyrics.

"Broke Down Engine" uncannily captures the idiosyncratic style of Blind Willie McTell with a stunning, virtuosic display of quicksilver licks answering every vocal phrase. Robert Johnson's "Last Fair Deal Gone Down" is creatively re-imagined on an amplified Danelectro as a funky, hypnotic Hill Country stomp rather than a medium shuffle. "Southbound Train," however, is taken as an achingly slow blues as opposed to the snappy shuffle of the Big Bill Broonzy original. Jones' insistently swinging shuffle, "No More Crying" is a virtual compendium of country blues licks performed with consummate grace. The Mississippi John Hurt standard "Don't Want Me, Baby" likewise reveals his mastery of the tricky syncopated ragtime style along with his naturally warm, unforced and inviting vocal manner. 

Broonzy's oft-covered "Key to the Highway" with two fleet single-note solos, rocks as hard as the famed Clapton/Allman version without the benefit of amplification or a rhythm section. "You Better," co-written with J. Scroggins, is a show-stopper with dynamic changes of tempo and a lyric admonishing a lady to, "...make a little time for me." Jones again picks up his Danelectro for a crackling version of Elmore James' "Cry for Me, Baby," skillfully weaving the tough signature riff and an aggressive solo into the charging boogie rhythm. A toe-tapping and melancholy ragtime version of W.C. Handy's "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" provides a welcome respite with Jones' ragged vocal adding poignancy. Maintaining the more intimate tone, Jones utilizes Leadbelly's classic "Goodnight Irene" to cast a dark, late night spell. Staying in the alternating bass groove, he shares his lust for a sweet young thing in Sonny Boy Williamson's "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" that contains the kind of remarkable independence between fingers and voice that can only come from long hours of perfecting one's craft.

And capping it all is a jaunty duet with Charlie Musselwhite on the Hoagy Carmichael Tin Pan Alley classic "Lazy Bones" that sways and swings "in the noonday sun" and rounds out the trip from Mississippi to Georgia, Chicago and New York City. It is the most rewarding journey from a guide with impeccable credentials and unquenchable love for his art.     

                                                                                                                    Dave Rubin

                                                                                                                    2005 KBA winner in Journalism