Blues is a Genre, more than most others, that is full of albums where artists have joined forces to create records that have a special magic. It’s the raw spontaneity that often makes the best blues music, which is amplified when two or more excellent artists spar off one another, pushing each other to greater musical heights. Albums that combined like Albert King and Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jonny Copeland, Robert Cray and Albert Collins, BB King and Bobby Bland, Muddy Walters and Jonny Winter, John Lee Hooker and anybody, are just a few examples off the top of my head where this meeting of talent has created great records. This too is one such album. The styles of Detroit singer and guitarist Marcus Malone and British guitarist Innes Sibun are in close unison on a record choc-full of great blues songs. There’s the line where blues meets rock on ‘Lovelight’ with its low slung Jimmy Page riff, a song guaranteed to make you kick off your shoes and let your hair down (if you’ve got any) and ’She’s My Girl’ with its tasty slide work grooves like ’Southern Harmony’ era Black Crowes. Malone has a fantastic rich voice and brings some grit and sweet soul to the table. Those soulful songs are pure class: the homey ‘Let Me Love You’, ‘I Want You Back, here Malone’s pleading vocal is matched perfectly with Sibun’s yearning solo guitar work and ’So Tired O Living’ that captures a late night Joe Louis Walker or Bobby Bland vibe. Not surprisingly, after Sibun’s past playing with Robert Plant, there’s a touch of Lead Zeppelin here on the Zep ‘III’ sounding ’Taste Of Your Love’ with its evocative acoustic verses. The record opens and closes with two songs that are about promoting peace and love; the opening title track runs along a rough riff and the closing ‘Everyday’s A Miracle’ is somewhere between Bobby Womack and the marriage of gospel and funk that Robert Randolph is currently doing so well. The production is stellar; every instrument and lead and backing vocal is clear, distinct and powerful in the mix. It puts the songs in their best possible light, allowing them to shine bright. This is a winning mix of US and UK blues
It’s the raw spontaneity that often makes the best blues music, which is amplified when two or more excellent artists spar off one another, pushing each other to greater musical heights
– Duncan Jamieson
