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Walter Trout Battle Scars By Lady K In Lady K's humble opinion, Battle Scars is Walter Trouts very best album  ever. In addition to Walters rocking guitar blues, the lyrics on each track represent different stages of his nearly life-ending battle with liver disease. It was a long struggle that Walter (and his family and band) started fighting, publicly, about mid-2013. Walters wife, Marie, began blogging regularly around that time, bringing his millions of fans into the arena with them. On the West Coast, the list of people waiting for liver donors was long, with a very lengthy wait forecast. Harmonica man Curtis Salgado (whod gone through the same wait several years earlier) advised the Trouts that his own luck changed when he relocated to Nebraska and found his donor there. Walter and Marie left their two sons and family friends guarding the home-front (their oldest son, already out of school, was making guitar music in Europe) and headed for Omaha, where the wait began. Maries b...
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Zac Harmon - Right Man Right Now By Lady K Zac Harmon (out of Mississippi) and his band have been together for a while - its the same great group that Lady K wrote about in her Music is Medicine review several years ago. Zac and the band get rave reviews from all the right places. Blues Revue called Harmon a masterful musician and performer of the blues. Blues reviewer, Don Wilcox, referred to his Bobby Blues Bland uptown sophistication with a touch of Freddie King guitar. The band includes Zac Harmon (vocals, lead, rhythm guitar, keyboards); Buthel (bass); Cedric Goodman (drums), Cory Lacy (keyboards). There are a whole slew of guests: Anson Funderburgh (guitar - one of Lady Ks faves when he performs and records with Mark Hummel); Lucky Peterson (organ); Bobby Rush (vocals and harp); and Mike Finnigan Organ). Additional musicians include: Christopher Troy (keyboards); B.R. Millon (rhythm and bass guitars); Gregg Wright (guitar); James Hot Dog Lewis (keyboards); Chef Deni (harp); Jimmy...
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Bob Margolin - My Road By Matt MacDonald The latest release from singer/songwriter/guitarist and Muddy Waters Band alumnus Bob Margolin features 12 songs, seven of which are his own compositions, including one co-written with harp/guitar player Tad Walters. His strong writing and the surefooted backing of Walters and drummer/vocalist Chuck Cotton make for a thoughtful, understated album. In fact, the word that comes to mind for My Road is philosophical. Recently, I had the chance to read a very engaging article by Margolin in Blues Music Magazine. It was all about aging, its path, and the acceptance of it. Almost every song here follows these themes in one way or another. Of them, three of his originals best represent his effort to make sense of things. The catchy Chicago sounding opener My Whole Life exclaims and explains his concise summation of his fifty years onstage; the reflective Understanding Heart (with excellent rhythm harp from Walters) reaps the seed of a lesson first sowed...
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Poor Lazarus - Sugar Brown By Matt MacDonald This second release from singer/guitarist Sugar Brown (AKA Ken Kawashima, PhD) is made up of seven originals (one an instrumental collaboration with harp player Bharath Rajakumar), five covers, and a two part adaptation of the Lewis Carroll poem, ?The Mad Gardener's Song. Recorded in mono with almost no overdubbing, it?s abundantly clear from the opening salvo of Frankie Lee Sims Walkin With Frankie? that Brown is going hard for that retro sound so popular on blues albums today. From a technical standpoint, it?s primitive, as if it might have been done at Sam Phillips? Memphis Recording Service between Howlin Wolf sessions. Brown's voice helps to get this wild and raw vibe across, too. It?s unpolished and doesn't have much range, but it brings a conviction and an intensity that still manages to sound unforced. This is what makes Poor Lazarus so appealing. That retro sound, the smorgasbord of sampled classic blues riffs, the lif...
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