The song that broke every songwriting rule

J. Geils Band - Full House (CD review)

 

(Before there was ADHD, there was Peter Wolf. They didn’t make fire-breathing dragons any better than the J. Geils Band in concert.)

 Crash-bam-boom! An auditory blast in its own right, this is the musical equivalent of a 4th of July fireworks display by one of the hottest groups ever to soar onstage and one of the most ferocious shows of its time. If crackling energy is what you need and explosive rock ‘n roll is your medicine, this band was made to order. Recorded live in 1972 at Detroit’s Cinderella Ballroom on two steamy nights, the place jumped like a pogo stick with mad springs as Peter Wolf lived up to his name and yowled, yelled, screeched, and bawled alongside his five locomotive bandmates.

This Boston-based band plays like they are trying to sprint a marathon, and it’s absolutely magnificent to hear these guys work out their love for R&B smokers. “First I Look at the Purse” leaps for the jugular as the band takes no prisoners at the opening signal onslaught of Stephen Jo Bladd’s rollercoaster drumming, and Seth Justman whips up a thunderstorm on shrieking organ. However, they just toy with your excitement, because Magic Dick jumps in (yes, that’s his stage name) to kick down the door and demolishes the place with raging harmonica. Crunching mega-ton choruses pound away as Wolf hammers relentlessly on vocals, and without a moment’s hesitation, they zoom straight into Otis Rush’s “Homework.” I’ve heard Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac do this, but not this volatile, and this is definitely street-wise schooling from the rough end of town that can’t be found on any diploma. Wolf and Dick pair off like two angry cats, J. Geils throws some darts with quick guitar licks, and Justman spray-paints clouds again on the organ. Hot, hot, hot!

All Peter Wolf needs is to hear the audience goading him on, and he gives it right back, tantalizing them: “This is called ‘Take Out Your False Teeth, Momma—I wanna Suck on Your Gums!’” Justman bangs out piano boogie like Jerry Lee Lewis and races ahead of every-one as “Pack Fair and Square” hoots and squeals. Do these guys ever come up for air? It’s not possible, especially when Wolf is feeling his adrenalin rushes, jabbering on the edge of pure gibberish to signal Dick’s virtuoso special, Juke Joint Jimmy’s “Whammer Jammer.”

The audience immediately picks up on the coming storm with handclaps—a hip black gal beckons “Come on!” to get everyone into the mix, and what follows is a kaleidoscopic squall by the man “on the lickin’ stick.” The rhythm section is towed along like a game fish running the line with the hook and bait, and everyone grinds to a finish when they bring the ending onboard. What a fight! No time to look back: here comes more boogie, as “Hard Drivin’ Man” is in town and there’s no brake pedal on this machine. Justman dances wildly on the piano as Wolf cavorts behind the mic and J. Geils struts on guitar behind Danny Klein’s bass and Bladd’s thrashing percussion. Wolf lashes the crowd for yet-more momentum, and the only thing that can stop them now is a brick wall.

They have that looming dead ahead, and it’s the size of a mountain: John Lee Hooker’s “Serves You Right To Suffer.” Ghostly, dark organ rises and falls like a specter in the gloom as Wolf begs for mercy, and Bladd and Klein are framed against Dick and Justman’s Chicago-style moaning and wailing, mocked by guitar. There’s room for one more, and Geils comes in with a banshee solo that batters anything and anyone left standing. However, this band believes in redemption—they’re already “Cruisin’ for a Love,” and Dick’s cheerful harp whoops-and-swoops provide forgiveness, followed by an exuberant Geils. Stand back—the prey is in sight, and like a pack of wild dogs, they give chase in a classic Canned Heat groove.

The winner—and they are all first-place champs—is Stephen Bladd, because he runs away with “Looking for a Love” as his partners carry him off on their shoulders. Imagine a team of football players doing acrobatics on the high wire and trapeze while playing some monsoon-style rock ‘n roll, and that’s how this show ends. It’s all muscle and power, and they come back for a raging finale—twice!

These guys were the late Bill Graham’s real favorite band at the Fillmore East—it’s right there in his autobiography. When a band plays like they’ve got nitroglycerine in their veins and it’s about to blow, then there’s no doubting that this must have been one helluva show. By the way, I can vouch for them: I saw—honest—U2 open their show in 1982 in Phoenix, AZ. They owned the town that night—just give them the keys to the city and let the music run away with your ears and backbone. You’ll have the nail your furniture to the floor before you finish this CD, but it’s worth every minute of the show. Awwoooooooo!!!!

From Layla and Other Love Songs: Bobby Whitlock tells his life story to me

 

If you're of the mind to explore the world of rock, blues, jazz, and folk/ballad from the 1970s, you know the band Derek and the Dominos. Four men (plus a short guest feature by Duane Allman. Drummer Jim Gordon, bassist Carl Radle, Eric Clapton on guitar and vocals, and Bobby Whitlock on keyboards and vocals. Layla and other Love Songs. 

Awright, time for another story (or more), but not mine. In memory of Bobby Whitlock.

(I still cannot believe I sat there and heard this. I know there may be different versions of these tales, but I was here first to sit down with him. So maybe I helped churn up these gems. Besides, I won't get yelled at--like I did when I printed something he said and the (other) guilty party in THAT deal called me out on it. How wuz I supposed to know?) And that "Beverly Hills" imagery/reference had me in stitches. {"The guy is telling me THIS?!?"}

Bobby Whitlock - THE DOMINO EFFECT

(From my book Rock 'n' Blues Stew II)

(There I am, sitting on the porch of Bobby’s house in May 2000—at that time, in Oxford, Mississippi—and I’ve flown down from NJ to interview him—on my dime. He’s sitting there fooling around with a dobro, and all I can do is gawk: “Omigod, this is a real rock star musician! This is the guy on the Layla album!” Some things never change. Years later, I saw Bobby at his home in Tuscumbia, Alabama, after he had come over to the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio on his new Indian motorcycle and sporting his new tattoos.

I guess it’s a natural thing to say that when you’ve had a life like mine—especially my early childhood—that “I was born to play the blues.” It’s the way that I was raised—hard physical work was expected to be done by a child to help make money to help support our family. If that meant bending over in the fields, doing back-breaking work like the other adults, then it was understood that this was my way of contributing. I’m talking about real little, like a little bitty boy. Not even eight years old; much smaller.

I chopped and picked cotton until my fingers were stiff and sore—cotton’s nasty stuff; it can make your skin dry up and bleed if you handle too much of it. I rode the back of bean planters in the countryside out there in Arkansas. The sun would be beating down, the air would be hot and dusty and our throats were parched, but we had to work—there wasn’t much else to do and we had to pitch in and help. I hauled all kinds of produce.

Did you ever hear the phrase “a shotgun house”? Well, we lived in one, down there in Marmaduke, Arkansas. That meant you could fire a shotgun from one side and there wasn’t anything like a wall or any other rooms to stop the pellets or buckshot from going anywhere but straight out the door—it was kinda like a three-room, one-house deal. It was also known as a high-water house, because it was sort of built on stilts to keep it dry when the high water rose. You could literally read last year’s news through the cracks in the walls because that was the insulation in this house.

Sometimes, it was necessary to scare off—or worse—anything or anyone on two or four legs that might be trying to break into the place. Yes, we knew we were poor—I could tell that by having to sleep head-to-toe in a bed with my grandfather, “Peapaw” Whitlock. For heat, all we had was a pot-bellied stove, and food…well, I remember one time when a rat ate through a loaf of bread that we had saved… it looked like a train had gone through a tunnel from one end to another.

My daddy was a preacher and what you’d call a “professional student,” and he felt that this would take the mischief out of me, as well as teach me discipline that was necessary to be a son of a man of the gospel. I took my share of beatings, too: tied up by the wrists and whipped because I wasn’t acting serious-like during church services. I’m talking about this happening to me as a young fella of eleven years—not a child anymore, either! He took me out back to the barn and trussed me up and used the leader-line of a mule team on me—I’m talking about a seriously thick piece of leather! He kind of had what they call a “Napoleon complex”—I didn’t know then that he wasn’t six feet tall until I grew bigger than he did.

My daddy would drag my mother and me and my sister and brother—they were too young to work--all over, looking for someplace to work while he did his preaching. I can still see pictures in my mind of her in a home-made dress and high heels, standing over a hot wood stove and cooking on a Sunday. My mother and I had to go work in the fields to feed ourselves because my father would come home for two days and be gone again. On Sundays and Wednesdays, folks would take the preacher’s family into their house and show their hospitality that way. I remember one family—the Turberville’s--whom I thought were rich because Mr. Ross Turberville had two mules and a tractor.

You would have to meet my kind of kinfolk to understand them--they just did things their own way and nobody had better interfere--what we called “rounders.” They would as soon as fight, steal, make moonshine or just get into plain mischief--just imagine how a raccoon would act if they were part-human. It just had to rub off on me, growing up with people like this. I can remember Peapaw Whitlock living with us, whittling and then spitting on that stove, and drinking boiling coffee—I never would have believed it in my life, but it was that hot.

He also did something that I learned about when I was on the road as a musician: Peapaw would smoke regular tobacco—Bull Durham was his brand—during the day, but at night…then he’d take something else from another pocket and light up that. When I first smoked marijuana, I knew what it was! I said to myself, “That old sonovabitch, he was smoking pot!” Of course, it was during the ‘30s and ‘40s, and people’s attitudes were different, and so was the practice of indulging in those kinds of things. Especially for us folks who lived back in the hills and hollows—it was more understood as a way of combining medicine with driving out the pain of making ends meet and getting through the harshness of living.

For example, there was Aunt Berthie and Uncle Elvin--they were my kin from Marked Tree, Arkansas. Aunt Berthie was a great big woman, with hair down to the ground, and Uncle Elvin was my Peapaw (grandfather) King’s brother. Well, you sure can say they were a little bit odd: in their home, they had pigs in the bedroom and chickens roosting on the head of the bed. They ran a store there, a kind of general store where you could buy all kinds of goods. I can see those wooden sidewalks in my mind…but the point is, the government wouldn’t let them sell anything out of that store unless it had a lid on it or a wrapper. I would have been hard-pressed and double-dealt to buy anything from them, but they were kinfolk.

Well, it wasn’t too long before Aunt Berthie went into an institution for the mentally handicapped. One day, Uncle Elvin called Peapaw King and said, “Hey, one of Berthie’s relatives has died, and we gotta take her to the funeral.” They had a pick-up truck with a chair in the back of it--it was something straight out of “The Beverly Hillbillies.” So, they took her out of the side door, which was quite a feat for a woman of her size and put her up in that chair.

Then they took off, doing about 45 miles an hour down a bumpy gravel road with Berthie perched up there, and rocks zinging from under the tires and smoke flying in the air. Peapaw said, “I felt the truck hit a bump and looked up and everything got real springy under the wheels, as though we had just shucked ourselves of some extra weight.” Both men looked in the rearview mirror and saw Berthie tumbling end-over-end in the gravel behind them. Uncle Elvin said, “Doggone, she’s gone and dove out of the back of the truck!” So, both men went and picked her up, dusted her off and put her back in the chair, turned around and drove all the way back to the institution. They hauled her out of the chair, dusted her off and backed the truck up to the side door. Then they went to the front desk and declared, “She ain’t quite ready yet!”

Like I said, growing up with these folk can leave a lasting imprint on a young boy’s mind--and I was an impressionable child. Being poor was a way of life that was just something that we accepted--so the petty criminal activities in which the family participated was just considered another way to make ends meet--it was a way to survive!

Let me give you another example of how they survived: they were “miners.” Oh, no, there was no prospecting for gold or other precious minerals—that was too much hard work for nothing. Their theory was simple: what was once yours is now mine. One time, Peapaw and Uncle Elvin—this must go back about 55 years or so— were out on an “excavating” mission in Mississippi, riding around in an old beat-up car. They were gonna dig up something somewhere, but they just weren’t sure what it would be. Then they came upon a farmhouse and went out and stole this farmer’s chickens—chicken coop and all! They opened up the back of this old car and put the whole thing in there—chickens and coop and all—and drove away in the dead of night.

Well, sure enough, just like Aunt Berthie and the truck, the chicken coop and the chickens fell out of the back of the car, and there were chickens running around loose all over the place. My grandpa, Peapaw King, went back to the farmer’s house—the guy from whom they’d just stolen the chickens and the chicken coop!!—and knocked on the door. “Could you give us a hand out here?” he asked, “We got ourselves a problem with all these chickens!” The farmer followed him back to the car, helped them round up all those loose birds and tie up the chicken coop, and put it in the back of the car again!

They started up the car and began to drive away—but that’s not the King family way of doing things, so they stopped and thought a minute. As a token of their appreciation, they backed the car up alongside the farmer, who was still standing on the side of the road. Uncle Elvin stepped out and handed the farmer a chicken, which the startled man placed under his arm like a loaf of bread. Sure enough, my grandfather and Uncle Elvin drove off and left the poor farmer standing on the side of the road, scratching his head with one hand, holding a hen in the other, and wondering why two men were out in the dead of night with a trunk full of squawking chickens and a coop that looked a lot like his. To tell the truth, a Pentecostal preacher was holding a revival in Lepanto, AR, and he, Peapaw and Uncle Elvin were in cahoots with this chicken stealing. After he stole the chickens, Peapaw left a note on the chicken house, “We steal from the rich and give to the poor, we left you six, to raise us some more.”

Peapaw King also got himself thrown into the Polk County Farm in Arkansas for stealing a loaf of bread and a quart of milk— don’t forget that I’m talking about the times of the Great Depression---and my grandmother, “Big Momma” King got a job working there in the kitchen. It was like a complete scenario from the Paul Newman movie, Cool Hand Luke: they bull-whipped him with a cat-o’-nine tails, and “Big Momma” slipped him some red pepper powder to put in his shoes and helped him break out of there. They had the hounds on his trail real quick-like, but that pepper stuffed them up. I saw those scars on his back from when they whipped him.

On the other side, it was the Whitlock’s that were trouble. My Peapaw Whitlock was a moonshiner, and he died because of it. I remember him literally lighting that stuff up—if it had a blue flame, it meant it was real, real good! He was going out on delivery—but of course, he had to sample it a bit to make sure it was of the proper quality and strength—and he got himself drunk.

So, there he was, taking a case of freshly-made brew across a newly-cut cornfield during the night on what must have been the coldest Thanksgiving Day on record—I mean, it was nasty bitter cold, down near New Albany, MS. He was carrying a pint jug with him on the way back—that was to be expected—but he didn’t see or couldn’t see—depending on his condition—where he was going, and he tripped over a corn stalk. The fall didn’t kill him, but he landed on a sharpened cut stalk of corn, and it punctured his chest. He turned over on his back in the middle of the rows and just froze to death. The boy who was running the fence on that farm came out the next day to work and found my grandfather lying there with his arms outstretched to the heavens and a pint of moonshine behind him. Lord knows if he was trying to ask for help to raise himself up or he was trying to reach out first for that lost jug!

The only joy I had was when I would have a few spare moments to hear music at the church, or when I sat with my grandmother, “Big Momma” King, who would play her dobro for me. Thank heaven for those moments—they were the shining light in my life as a three-year-old boy! It was a beautiful National dobro, made in the late 1880s, and there were hula dancers on the front and back. Big Momma would sit me down and play gospel-style to me, “Turn your radio on, get in touch with Jesus.” I can still hear her now!—and I have that dobro with me. I’ve gone and had it painted—at one time, a lady named Genya Revan, who played with 10-Wheel Drive, had it and kept it safe for me.

See, it was always with me—the music—it was in my soul and in my spirit. So, when I look back at those hard times, I can say I was a singer, and I sang all the time! I’d be working out in the fields with the migrant workers and the poor black folk who were sharecroppers, and they’d sing all the way to the fields in the back of rickety, bouncing trucks, and then they’d be singing while they were working, and then on the way back home. I’d be singing right along with them. So, yes, I’d say my roots were always there in gospel, blues and soul music—I was born living the blues, and I learned to sing them to get through those harsh times!

Rock 'n' Blues Stew II: The Musings of a Music Journalist

Paperback     Also available in Kindle. 

Just a few faces that you'll find in the book, along with Danny "Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues" O'Keefe, Koko Taylor, the J. Geils Band, Bobby Whitlock, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King, Rory Block, John Lennon, Led Zeppelin, Buddy Guy, and others.

(Hint: The Allman Brothers Band, Leo Kottke, Janiva Magness, Danny Kirwan and Peter Green, Delaney and Bonnie & Friends, George Harrison, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Levon Helm)

For a music journalist: Albert King, blues master

This story about Albert also came from the Tomato Years release; I think it's one of the best collections around of his work. I especially enjoy "Angel of Mercy" and the different take on "The Very Thought of You," one of the most romantic tunes I've heard. In that deep bass voice of his, Albert treated it like he was holding a baby in his arms.

Meanwhile, enjoy the story of Albert-to-the-rescue of a music executive who was also a close friend. This takes place in Detroit in a very bad section of town, and they have just checked in to a hotel where the room and cashier's window are protected by heavy bullet-proof glass.

"Later that night after being in my room for about half an hour, Albert knocked on the door and asked to be let in. I have never seen a more majestic sight in my life as I saw that night. Albert arrived dressed only in a sleeveless white tee shirt, extra large white silk boxer shorts held up with red, white, and blue suspenders of the same design as our American flag, pink silk stockings, black leather garter belts, and black Alligator shoes.

"Tucked under his arm and strapped around his back was a black leather shoulder holster containing a pearl-handled .45 automatic. With Albert's size, the hand gun looked like a derringer. Albert told me that if there was any trouble to knock on his wall and he would be right over. To this day, I don't know if he would have kicked the door in or shot the lock off to come to my rescue."

By the way, Albert was a very gentle man as a bulldozer operator: they said he had a touch that was so fine that he could pick up a rug with the blade and not scratch the floor.  He also was a notorious pool player:  he once played a game on a table that was so warped that it went downhill faster than a piano on wheels on a San Francisco street.  He won $15,000, and said to the sore loser that he would rather not give a rematch because his game would suffer.

Soup - A Tour of Two Cities CD review

This, friends, is how you become a music journalist:  you DEVOUR the sounds and translate them through your fingers--which is what I did with an indie jam band called Soup.

A Tour of Two Cities

Soup (Phoenix Presents)

(Alas, Soup broke up due to the nemesis of all musicians:  a recording deal never manifested to truly bring this immensely talented group of men the fame I believe they deserve.  But I know every Soup fan cherishes their recordings and memories of their performances.  I caught them (and carried gear off-stage) at the Mercury Lounge in NYC one autumn evening. Erik, Andrew, Kevin, Bram, Lee: you guys will always be on top in our memories.  Look for Bram at http://soundart.us for creative musical marketing ideas and rhythm), and check out Amazon.com for “Soup jam band.”

I have said it before and I am more convinced than ever: the musical Garden of Eden is alive and flourishing down South.  We have been privileged to witness a new generation of tremendously talented young men and women (The North Mississippi All-Stars immediately come to mind), and to the rest of the world, I proclaim: let there be Soup.  Captured at two gigs (The Cotton Club, Atlanta, and The Wetlands Preserve, NY), this set packs more muscle-building music than a creatine shake.

You can make all the creative puns you want, but the hottest band I have heard to date—the one that I will stake my reputation upon for anyone who wants to cover the odds—are the five guys from Atlanta who play on this double disc.  Soup is hot—no, try scalding—and I’m too serious to be joking.  As an audiophile and CD collector, I’m guarding this one with a passion.  Imagine, if you will, a musical burrito:  wrap it all around the combination of Little Feat and the Dave Mathews Band’s herky-jerky rhythms and vocal gyrations, add in the singing whirlpools of Phish and the Spin Doctors (as well as their instrumental nimbleness and enthusiasm), and add in some Cajun chortling and carousing on accordion.

 Can you believe it? An accordion as a major player (yes, he cooks), as well as doubling on a harmonica hornet’s nest that would make John Popper’s and the Blues Travelers’s eyes water with joy.  Spike this with guitar—an acoustic-lead player whose fingers pulsate wah-wah/chord and jazz ripples and doesn’t tear it up—he’s so good that you don’t notice it’s not done on pure electric.  Team him up with another guitarist with chords as thick as chocolate pudding, and drop in the funk—a slapping, bopping, and hopping bass, and a drummer who lashes his set like the Feat’s Richie Hayward with a new array of toys and tools, including some cartoon woodblocks.

 There’s also hip-hop, a capella gospel, pop, classic rock, and cool-whip jamming.  When was the last time that this much came from a band that is so fresh with material that they have more layers to explore than a geological site?

Work that volume control knob for the first tune, “Squirrels,” because it’s the only song that features Kevin Crow’s slide as it brays and sneers like a trombone with a wicked treble head cold.  Erik Rowen’s frantic and panicked vocals set up his pickup truck-sized chords and rhythm playing alongside Kevin, and Andrew Margolious skitters and careens over the squeeze box behind the 4^th-of-July celebration of Bram Bessoff’s drum detonations and Lee Adkins’s dancing bass.  Margolious switches off mid-song to harmonica and scatters the four winds with a mad outburst, and Crow slices through the air again with a slide solo like a raging sword.  The boys play and sing together throughout this rave-up with bank vault tightness—as they do for the entire show.

Everything else that follows is a five-star banquet of sounds and styles:  “Salley’s Sister” is a tongue-in-cheek love song (that you’ll never see in a Hallmark card) that makes lust a joyful word with a pinch of respect.  Kevin’s solo sounds as if it was lifted from a jazz directory, and the singing is a magnificent percussive display of delightful vocal comedy.  Lace that capo on a 12 string and let the richness of the arrangement of  “Scratches on the Coffee Table” melt against Andrew’s romantic accordion (absolutely showing how effective it is as a rhythm instrument).  Listen again how Kevin modulates his acoustic-lead notes—this guy has enough ideas on technique and sound to make a video on his own. 

With Kevin’s wah-wah dancing like a hop-scotch game, it’s essential to catch his stuttering solo on “Cybil Rivalry,” and don’t you dare overlook Lee’s flashes on bass—or you’ll find yourself mesmerized by Erik’s carpet-thick strumming.  The boys have an agenda, and with a hip-hop statement that lays down the rules (with that outrageous guitar orchestrating the pattern), they take the covers off Neil Diamond, of all artists, with a hint of “America.”  Of course it works!  Someone lets out a birthday cheer, and it’s back to business:  “Get Me Back Groove” has enough lift to take to the air on its own like a glider riding thermals.  (Is that a reference to Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” that I heard?  These guys must have been plowing through a music encyclopedia to find some of these cameos.) 

The next four songs have their own magic, but I have a special preference for the vocal textures and happiness of “Lucky’s Not a Beggar” (supported by special guest Walter Absher’s violin and cello), and the drum corps march of “Jefferson.”  As a compact unit, the band shows  the precision of a football half-time parade that just hits every cue and marker (Bram is determined to show off every tone and highlight on his drum kit throughout this entire package—he’s a Rock of Gibraltar, too, as a power surge), and Andrew doubles back and forth between vintage harmonica and accordion.  In fact, he’s so excited that he blows a clarion call on harp to announce “Get Me Some Action/Need a Little Bit,” and the boys sing of a very potent psychedelic substance.  Margolious honks again with glee and mischief, and no, that’s not a synthesizer, Kevin has found another trick to show on guitar.  The last song probably gives away the foundation of their musical repertoire: they close with the Beatles’s “Dear Prudence.” 

Wait, the show’s not over yet!!—drop on disc two and groove on the New Orleans-meets-Frank Zappa cavorting of “Marvin Wright.”  I swear Bram hits everything in sight that he can reach to check out its sound.  With an intro beat that eerily echoes of Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk,” check out the reggae pulse on “Eweh,” and catch the texture on Kevin’s elastic solo from the stop-and-go “King of 18.” They’re not even warmed up yet—lock up the house on the stew-thick chords and the vocal choruses on “Charlie Don’t Know.”  Oh, and you need to have your future told by “Voodoo Lady” and that scamp on accordion during “Come Up for Air.”

Lee Adkins gets the spotlight on “Breakdown,” and he pushes the envelope to new unexplored heights with a daring, echoing bass wah-wah solo behind Bram’s percolating drives.  I sold the farm for the rights to “Leisure Suit,” and if you feel aches and pains, it’s because your muscles are trying to get in the mix via air guitar and that funky beat.  You’ll definitely need to take your shoes to be resoled if you catch up to Kevin’s hypnotic chant.  They go for the fences on “RainKing,” and their gorgeous vocals just raise your hands in praise for the brief gospel-like “Bid You Goodnight.”   Well, it’s time to pack up and say farewell, and “Papa Says It’s Alright” lets the audience share the lyrics—even if they just pretend.  Curtain call: Mr. Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue,” and when would you pass up a chance to salute the author when your band has so much skill? 

With so much to offer, why haven’t we heard more about these guys?  I lay that at the extinct offices of Phoenix (who are no longer in action; Bram Bessoff is still in contact with me, and I thank him for that).  Hey, there’s some studio CDs, and if you think they’re superb in concert, then you need to hear them in a different setting—just to compare.  I am rejoicing at the opportunity to start these guys with a tie for the #1 slot (with the previously reviewed Richard Thompson) at the end-of-year Best Group nominations for 2001.  So, drop me all the jokes, puns, and quips you can, but I’ll say it again:  brew me some more Soup—this is the tastiest music you’ll find.