Jimmy Thackery & Tab Benoit

The tour to support 2002's Whiskey Store album featuring guitarists Jimmy Thackery and Tab Benoit is captured here in all of its raging six-string glory. Not just for those who own the studio album, this disc repeats six tracks, but they are overhauled and extended so radically (the title cut is nearly tripled in length to a nine-minute blowout), that it's far from a cash-generating retread. Although the formidable Double Trouble rhythm section stayed home, road tested Thackery's saxist Jimmy Carpenter jumps aboard, as does B-3 keyboardist Ken Faltinson, and both ignite the concert sparks substantially.

Soulful singer and guitarist Tab Benoit has never made secret his devout allegiance to the Louisiana music tradition. With The Sea Saint Sessions, Benoit, ably assisted by several Crescent City stalwarts, takes his music back to the source, setting up shop at the famed hit factory to cook up a sonic gumbo that successfully recaptures the spontaneity of the classic Sea Saint sound. Benoit's guests conjure up some of the studio's old musical magic as "Big Chief" Monk Boudreaux infuses Mardi Gras Indian spirit into "Monk's Blues," Meter man George Porter Jr. funkifies "Making the Bend," and Cyrille Neville sings on his own "Plareen Man". But it is Benoit's distinctive guitar lines–somehow both supple and hard-edged–and the impeccable elasticity of his regular rhythm section that makes the music work. Most of the material is Benoit's own, although he pays tribute to Louisiana legend Guitar Slim with a take on the classic "Sufferin' Mind" and dips into the Howlin' Wolf songbook for a rendition of "Howlin' for My Darling".

This disc is an integral part of a series Telarc is doing – taking albums that were big sellers by prominent artists and having an innovative group of solid blues players do their interpretations of a variety of the songs from the original album. They have done this with the Beatles' White Album (calling it The Blues White Album) and Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde with good success, which will probably continue with this new interpretation of the Stones' 1972 vintage album. Telarc put together a dynamite "house" band, including Brian Stoltz (ex-Neville Brothers) on guitar and former Double Trouble rhythm section members Tommy Shannon and Chris Layton, and then pulled in many more celebrated artists to handle the leads. the Stones, who started out as a blues and R&B band, always maintained those roots; thus, many of the songs keep their original shape. This is a solid retooling of this classic Stones LP. Telarc has taken the original double disc and picked the songs the artists felt remained truest to their respective traditions and packaged it as a ten-song disc, complete with a cover notes that make it look the same.

Maria is an energetic, gutsy, hard-driving original blues guitarist and singer/songwriter. Maria enjoys an enthusiastic following in Western New York and Canada and has performed at a variety of clubs and festivals throughout the region. She has performed with national blue’s artists Tommy Castro, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Tab Benoit, Elvin Bishop, Popa Chubby, Kelley Hunt, Jeff Healey, Debbie Davies and Jimmy Thackery to name a few. Additionally, she has opened for Foreigner, Blue Oyster Cult, Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter, Little Feat, Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Foghat, Steppenwolf and Sammy Hagar.

This is not a new idea: in 2001 the English label Indigo produced a collection of Beatles songs by British and American blues artists. That was patchy, and so is this. The Beatles' heavy-handed treatment of "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" was intended (surely?) to be a joke, so for Jimmy Thackery and the Drivers to roll it flat like a steamroller is kind of missing the point. Pity it's the first track. In fact it's a pity the whole album wasn't reshuffled, because the best stuff only begins to appear about halfway through. Maria Muldaur's reading of "Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" leeches out all its cuteness, Chris Duarte's guitar-playing in "I'm So Tired" belies the title, Charlie Musselwhite and Colin Linden go arm-in-arm with harmonica and guitar to take "Dear Prudence" for a long walk and Linden also makes a pretty country blues in the style of Mississippi John Hurt out of "Blackbird".