Blues Riffs

After a brief return to his hard rock roots in 2002's Scars, guitarist Gary Moore comes back to the blues where his heart seems to be. But really, Moore's forte is his knack of combining the meaty licks and rugged tone from his gutsy rock to energize the electric blues music he has embraced since 1990's Still Got the Blues. To that end, Scars' drummer Darrin Mooney returns and Bob Daisley, veteran of such thundering outfits as Ozzy Osbourne's band, Uriah Heep and Rainbow, joins on bass. Hence this album's title is appropriate, since the power trio format pounds out this music with clenched-fist authority. Moore is an exceptionally tasty musician but even when the amps are turned up to eleven, as they are for most of this disc, there is feeling in his fiery licks…

Lightnin' Hopkins had a hard and fast approach to dealing with the abundance of record labels he recorded for during his career. The irascible bluesman would show up at the session in question but would refuse to play a note until he was paid his fee upfront. Once paid and satisfied, he'd unpack his stock set of boogie blues riffs and pretty much improvise songs on the spot until he'd fulfilled his agreed upon quota. Then he would leave. This system led to an awful lot of similarly constructed and executed throwaway tracks, but Hopkins had a special gift for personalizing the blues that came through in the best of these improvised songs, and a few gems always showed up in the process. This disc combines 1961's Walkin' This Road by Myself, which features Hopkins with drummer Spider Kilpatrick, harmonica player Billy Bizor, and pianist Buster Pickens, with 1963's solo acoustic Blues in My Bottle…