The Blues White Album

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".

For 50 years, The White Album has invited its listeners to venture forth and explore the breadth and ambition of its music, delighting and inspiring each new generation in turn. The Beatles have now released a suite of lavishly presented White Album packages, including an expanded 3CD package. The album's 30 tracks are newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and mix engineer Sam Okell and features the new stereo album mix on 2CDs, adding a third CD of the Esher Demos. This is the first time The BEATLES (‘White Album’) has been remixed and presented with an additional disc demo recordings. To create the new stereo audio mixes for ‘The White Album,’ Giles Martin and Sam Okell worked with an expert team of engineers and audio restoration specialists at Abbey Road Studios in London. This 3CD ‘White Album’ release includes Martin’s new stereo album mix, sourced directly from the original four-track and eight-track session tapes.

In November 1968, millions of double LPs were shipped to record stores worldwide ahead of that tumultuous year’s most anticipated music event: the November 22nd release of The BEATLES (soon to be better known as ‘The White Album’). With their ninth studio album, The Beatles took the world on a whole new trip, side one blasting off with the exhilarating rush of a screaming jet escorting Paul McCartney’s punchy, exuberant vocals on “Back In The U.S.S.R.” “Dear Prudence” came next, John Lennon warmly beckoning his friend and all of us to “look around.” George Harrison imparted timeless wisdom in “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” singing, “With every mistake we must surely be learning.” Ringo Starr’s “Don’t Pass Me By” marked his first solo songwriting credit on a Beatles album. For 50 years, ‘The White Album’ has invited its listeners to venture forth and explore the breadth and ambition of its music, delighting and inspiring each new generation in turn.

Snowy White has an extensive and impressive CV, serving guitar duties with huge rock acts such as Thin Lizzy (Chinatown and Renegade albums), Pink Floyd (Animals & The Wall tours), Roger Waters, Joan Armatrading, Peter Green and Al Stewart amongst many others. Whilst still to be found touring with Pink Floyd & Roger Waters, Snowy also fronts his own bands 'The White Flames' and 'The Snowy White Blues Project' and has released a number of well received and commercially successful albums and even scored a hit single with the song Bird Of Paradise. 'In Our Time… Live' A Snowy White Blues Project album was recorded in Holland in 2009. Features Snowy alongside Matt Taylor: (guitar & vocals) Ruud Weber: (bass & vocals) Juan van Emmerloot: (drums).

BGO Records continues its series of two-fer CD reissues of Johnny Winter's Columbia and Blue Sky LPs with this combination of two successive albums, 1977's Nothin' But the Blues and 1978's White, Hot & Blue. Both discs were informed by Winter's involvement with Muddy Waters, for whom he produced comeback albums prior to each of his own efforts, 1977's Hard Again and 1978's I'm Ready. After the Grammy-winning Hard Again, Winter toured with Waters, and when he came to make Nothin' But the Blues, he recruited Waters and his band as sidemen. (Waters only made a vocal contribution, singing "Walking Thru the Park.") Thus, Winter performed with harmonica player James Cotton and pianist Pinetop Perkins, among others…

For 50 years, ‘The White Album’ has invited its listeners to venture forth and explore the breadth and ambition of its music, delighting and inspiring each new generation in turn. The Beatles have now released a suite of lavishly presented ‘White Album’ packages, including a 180-gram 2LP vinyl set. The album’s 30 tracks are newly mixed by producer Giles Martin and mix engineer Sam Okell in stereo and includes packaging faithful to the original album.

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.