Jamaican-born bluesman Kirkland has always stretched the boundaries of his music and on this outing moves further into contemporary waters. Guest stars abound on this album, and Kirkland's idiosyncratic guitar work is answered and abetted by appearances from Tab Benoit, Sonny Landreth, Kenny Neal, Cub Koda, Christine Ohlman and G.E. Smith, as well as driving work from drummer Jaimoe and organist Richard Bell. The material is all over the road, but particularly noteworthy as highlights are Kirkland's take on Elmore James' "Done Somebody Wrong," "Snake In the Grass," "Nightgirl," and the title track.
How many Jamaican-born bluesmen recorded with John Lee Hooker and toured with Otis Redding? It's a safe bet there was only one: Eddie Kirkland, who engaged in some astonishing on-stage acrobatics over the decades (like standing on his head while playing guitar on TV's Don Kirshner's Rock Concert). But you would never find any ersatz reggae grooves cluttering Kirkland's work. He was brought up around Dothan, Alabama before heading north to Detroit in 1943. There he hooked up with Hooker five years later, recording with him for several labels as well as under his own name for RPM in 1952, King in 1953, and Fortune in 1959. Tru-Sound Records, a Prestige subsidiary, invited Kirkland to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in 1961-1962 to wax his first album, It's the Blues Man….
How many Jamaican-born bluesmen recorded with John Lee Hooker and toured with Otis Redding? It's a safe bet there was only one: Eddie Kirkland, who engaged in some astonishing on-stage acrobatics over the decades (like standing on his head while playing guitar on TV's Don Kirshner's Rock Concert). But you would never find any ersatz reggae grooves cluttering Kirkland's work. He was brought up around Dothan, Alabama before heading north to Detroit in 1943. There he hooked up with Hooker five years later, recording with him for several labels as well as under his own name for RPM in 1952, King in 1953, and Fortune in 1959. Tru-Sound Records, a Prestige subsidiary, invited Kirkland to Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey in 1961-1962 to wax his first album, It's the Blues Man! The polished R&B band of saxophonist King Curtis intersected with Kirkland's intense vocals, raucous guitar, and harmonica throughout the exciting set.
Detroit in the 1940s and ‘50s didn’t have a thriving record industry like Chicago. Detroit artists went there because that’s where the companies were. Even musicologist Alan Lomax made just one visit for the Library of Congress in 1938, when he recorded Calvin Frazier and Sampson Pittman. Nevertheless, enterprising individuals like Jack and Devora Brown, Bernard Besman and Joe Von Battle did their best to reflect the city’s musical talent.
If compiler Neil Slaven was an axe hero, he says he would favour a Danelectro Guitarlin, with its longhorn body, its lipstick pickups and coke-bottle machine head. Perhaps he d settle for the red Gretsch Duo-Jet Bo Diddley sported on his first album cover. That puts him out of step with most of the guitarists gathered on Deep Feeling. Albert King favoured the Flying V, Buddy Guy liked the metallic clatter of a Strat and Muddy Waters slashed his slide down a Telecaster neck. Semi-acoustics were the name of the game for the average blues guitarist. B.B. King and Little Milton took an early shine to the Gibson ES-335 (our cover star incidentally, in rare original watermelon cherry finish), although B s Lucille was actually a slimline 355…