Overboard 2019

The fourth in a series of comprehensive box sets chronicling David Bowie's entire career: Loving the Alien (1983-1988) covers a period that found Bowie at a popular peak yet somewhat creatively adrift. Once Let's Dance went supernova in 1983, as it was designed to do, Bowie's productivity slowed to a crawl: he knocked out the sequel, Tonight, in a year, then took three to deliver Never Let Me Down. By the end of the decade, he rediscovered his muse via the guitar skronk of Tin Machine, but Loving the Alien cuts off with Never Let Me Down, presented both in its original version and in a new incarnation containing tasteful instrumentation recorded in the wake of Bowie's death…

For his 18th album on Stony Plain, Duke Robillard leads his band – Bruce Bears on piano, Brad Hallen on acoustic bass, and Mark Teixeira on drums – through a set of covers of often obscure blues tunes from the late 1940s and early ‘50s. It's as if he is trying to re-create the contents of a jukebox in some Chicago bar of the era, with two songs each drawn from the repertoires of Guitar Slim ("Quicksand," "Later for You Baby"), Tampa Red ("Mercy Mercy Mama," "Let Me Play with Your Poodle"), Sugar Boy Crawford ("Overboard," "What's Wrong"), Pee Wee Crayton ("Blues After Hours," "Do Unto Others"), and Elmore James ("Tool Bag Boogie," "The 12 Year Old Boy"), plus Eddie Taylor's "Trainfare Home," John Lee Hooker's "Want Ad Blues," Jimmy McCracklin's "It's Alright," and Bobby "Blues" Merrill's "I Ain't Mad at You."

Containing all the Blegvad Trio and Quintet studio releases: Downtime, Just Woke Up, Hangman’s Hill and Go Figure – all re-mastered and repackaged - plus two additional CDs of unreleased studio recordings and live performances, mostly featuring songs not available on the studio CDs.