SR 332

Bobby "Blue" Bland - Further On Up The Road: The Duke Recordings 1955-1962 (2016) {2CD Set Southern Routes SR-3002}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 604 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 332 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (png) -> 27 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1955-62, 2016 Duke Records / Southern Routes | SR-3002
Blues / Rhythm & Blues / Soul / Electric Texas Blues / Soul-Blues

There's nobody like Bobby Blue Bland on Duke Records – especially during the early years that are featured on this collection! Bland came out of Memphis with a very unique, really amazing sound right from the start – an approach to blues that was a lot more sophisticated than most of his contemporaries, even those on the LA scene – with lots of jazz in his phrasing, and his backings as well – and this sublime vocal approach that often had Bobby growling in a way that seemed to come from deep down in the depths of his soul, but never in any sort of gimmicky sort of style. Bland was always the perfect balance of cool, class, and outright blues power – and that was never more true than on these sides.

Following marches, polkas, and waltzes by Benjamin Bilse, Richard Eilenberg, Josef Gung’l, and Carl Millöcker, this new release is now the fifth cpo album with the conductor Christian Simonis. This time he turns to two members of the Fahrbach family of musicians: to Philipp Fahrbach the Younger and Philipp Fahrbach the Elder. In mere numbers the members of the Fahrbach family by far surpassed the members of the Strauss family. Like the Strausses, the Fahrbachs also composed superb dances and marches.

Hawklords have been working a solid routine of album and tour annually for the past few years, with a few festival dates each summer thrown in for good measure, and through all of this they’ve developed a distinct space-rock vision, distinct from individual members' past Hawkwind associations. Here, says de facto leader Jerry Richards, once of free festival favourites Tubilah Dog, and 90s Hawk, they offer a concept revolving around "sex, death, art, time and identity." True to its title, it's a fusion: of space, progressive, and new wave rock. The result is a solid and engrossing batch of songs, with the articulate clarity of Ron Tree's vocals delivering strident, snappy and ritualistic sci-fi shaman declamations across the top of engagingly melodic tunes…