ROUND-UP: BLUES Kenny Wayne Shepherd Kirk Fletcher
When Rivers Meet We Fly Free
ONE ROAD
Wheel-spinning out of dodge like Bonnie and Clyde on opener Did I Break The Law, Grace and Aaron Bond prove capable getaway drivers on a debut album that unfolds like a road movie. We Fly Free confirms what two EPs hinted at: the British husband-and-wife are heavy enough to get your attention and quirky enough to hold it, with songs that give you a kicking but leave a boot-print on your heart.
Bound For Nowhere is the best of the album’s 11 cuts, the raging guitars spiced by Grace’s pleasingly creepy violin, and when they lock vocals on Walking On The Wire it transcends the route-one stomp. Elsewhere the duo show their depth: I’d Have Fallen is a hypnotic stop-start dustbowl lope, while Breaker Of Chains evokes a sundown in a sinister Southern town, the sound vindicating the pair’s insistence on tube tape echo and reverb chambers. But then, in case the cops are catching up, they end with a runaway title track that makes John Bonham’s beat from When The Levee Breaks sound like someone tapping on a biscuit tin. It’s an album to ride shotgun with. ■■■■■■■■■■
Jimmie Vaughan The Pleasure’s All Mine THE LAST MUSIC CO.
Respectfully, Jimmie, you’re wrong; it’s a joy to rifle this 31-track covers set, on which the former Fabulous Thunderbirds guitarist deftly busts the separation between country and blues. So an unrushed Funny How Time Slips Away beds down next to a rolling Teardrop Blues, with Vaughan’s fluid Strat joining the dots and sending both fan bases home happy. ■■■■■■■■■■
Straight To You Live PROVOGUE/MASCOT
You’d expect KWS to be a force live, and not a ball is dropped on this CD/DVD, recorded in happier times for Rockpalast. Woman Like You is a smashand-grab opener, and equally strong are the marathon jams: bounce-blues Shame Shame Shame and the mournful 11-minute Heat Of The Sun. ■■■■■■■■■■
Sandra Bouza
Falling Away From Me
SABUCEDO
On this, her debut album, Sandra Bouza sounds determined not to get stuck in the pigeonhole named ‘Esoteric Toronto Blues Belters’. Her voice is superb, and her songs are better, with tracks like Not Like Me and Turn It Up trading in dancefloor-ready funk-blues with substance and style. She’s a smart lyricist too. Almost Love offers a neat twist on the familiar break-up tune: the relationship was a damp squib anyway. ■■■■■■■■■■
My Blues Pathway CLEOPATRA
Fletcher can kick a cover about – not even Sonny Boy Williamson could sneer at his pure-feel treatment of Fattening Frogs For Snakes. But the Los Angeles guitarist doesn’t need anyone to prop him up, hitting a seam of wisdom on the selfwritten Ain’t No Cure For The Downhearted that skewers our virtual existence (‘Do you still dream, or are you led by a screen?’). ■■■■■■■■■■