Ron Levy

Ten tunes with an all-star cast including Ronnie Earl (guitar), Kim Wilson (harmonica), Greg Piccolo (sax), Wayne Bennett (guitar), and other excellent players. Plenty of fine guitar, keyboards, harmonica, and uptempo blues music.

This compilation provides an interesting survey of 9 blues slide guitar players. Collected from various independent record labels and recorded over the period 1960 through 1993, all of these tracks have been previously released albeit on hard to find albums and CDs. It is great to have these tracks collected in one place.

Universally hailed as the King of the Blues, the legendary B.B. King was without a doubt the single most important electric guitarist of the second half of the 20th century. His bent notes and staccato picking style influenced legions of contemporary bluesmen, while his gritty and confident voice -capable of wringing every nuance from any lyric- provided a worthy match for his passionate playing. In The Many Faces of B.B. King we will review many of his most celebrated collaborations including Stevie Ray Vaughan, Etta James, Chaka Khan and Pat Metheny, enjoy plenty of his hits that spanned a six-decade career and finally, enjoy a list of who’s who in The Blues Hall of Fame with names such as Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Slim Harpo and Sonny Boy Williamson. The Many Faces Of B.B. King is a fantastic album that showcases the work of one of the most celebrated musicians from our time.

Silva Screen Records present earlier composers who were masters of music on Hitchcock films, and later films with Bernard Herrmann on the second CD. The "CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA" is Miklos Rozsa's haunting theme which lasts over nine minutes is something from heaven. "STRANGERS ON THE TRAIN" the Dimitri Tiomkin contribution is also an outstanding track which can move the unmoveable with the heart-racing pounding sounds that the two composers generate. Both composers Rozsa and Tiomkin have a list of accomplishments a mile long, but to hear their music on a Hitchcock film is pure geneious in film making and scoring.

Duke Robillard's sessions have alternated between jazzy, sophisticated, low-key ventures and bluesy, more energetic, rousing dates. This one is on the robust side, matching Robillard's guitar and good-natured, celebratory vocals with the talents of a great guest corps that includes Dr. John and Ron Levy on keyboards, guitarist Jimmie Vaughan, bassist Thomas Enright, and drummer Tommy DeQuattro (the Pleasure Kings). These aren't always musical triumphs, but even the songs that don't quite work are entertaining, while the more inspirational offerings like "You're the One I Adore" and "Don't Treat Me Like That" nicely balance tremendous instrumental support with energetic vocal performances.

Melvin Sparks - I'm A Gittar Player (1997) {Cannonball Records CBD27101}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 301 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 111 Mb
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© 1997 Cannonball Records | CBD 27101
Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz Funk / Guitar

Although he appeared on countless R&B and soul-jazz sessions in the 1960s and early 1970s, Melvin Sparks has recorded only sporadically as a leader over the years. The late 1990s found the swinging, Grant Green-influenced guitarist recording for the Minneapolis-based Cannonball label and playing much the same type of groove-oriented organ-combo music he'd been embracing 25 and 30 years earlier. Recalling his work with Charles Earland, I'm a 'Gittar' Player employs Ron Levy on the Hammond B-3 and offers a very accessible fusion of jazz, R&B, blues and pop that often sounds like it could have been recorded in 1970.

This West Coast-based guitarist shines brilliantly on his third album for Bullseye Blues. While some of his earlier locally produced efforts have been uneven affairs, here kudos must go forth to producer and keyboard sideman Ron Levy. Levy keeps Wilson's guitar tone at sting and bite level 10 and his vocals right up front and toasty, surrounding him with a solid rhythm section and spare horn stabs. Eight of the 12 songs here are from Smokey's prolific pen, including "You Don't Drink What I Drink," and the title track, "Too Drunk To Drive," "Don't Tangle With Me," and "Black Widow," winners all. A quartet of covers (Magic Sam's "Easy Baby," Elmore James' "Something Inside Of Me" and a pair of Howlin' Wolf tunes, "Louise" and "44 Blues," with the latter featuring a guest turn from James Harman) rounds out this excellent session. Those who can't get enough of nasty, stinging lead guitar lines would do well to investigate this album.

Smokin' Joe Kubek's third Rounder album juggles blues-rock originals with faithful, exuberant covers of Jimmy Reed, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters and Little Walter Jacobs, among others. Kubek is a good, sometimes captivating guitarist and entertaining singer, if not the greatest pure vocalist, and the band rips through the 11 cuts in a relaxed, yet passionate fashion. But it's hard for any longtime blues fan to get excited over hearing another version of "Little Red Rooster" or "Mean Old World"; it's impossible to reinvent Delta, urban, Texas or West Coast blues. The solution is probably to make the best music you can and hope you hook those willing to listen to contemporary blues rather than spurn it for the originals.

After nearly forty years of musical and personal camaraderie, drummer and producer Bob Christina began studio work with Matt "Guitar" Murphy on what would become Murphy's final project. After he passed in June of 2018, the fate of the unfinished project was placed in Christina's hands. He began outreach to musicians who were friends of Murphy, played with him, or were otherwise influenced by him. The response was overwhelming.