CD REVIEW: BRAD WILSON – Blues Thunder

CD REVIEW: BRAD WILSON – Blues Thunder
Cali Bee Music
7 June, 2015
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
7 1/2/10

Not so much a thunder of blues as a moody and stormy affair, Brad Wilson delivers a rousing twelve tracks that are all underpinned by his searing blues guitar work and earthily melodic vocals.

Opener Is It Any Wonder is a gentle pop song with some tasty guitar licks a la latterday Eric Clapton, before Change It Up takes us for a midnight stroll in the Robert Cray/Jeff Healey direction. Blues Shadows is a slow and smokey bluesy jazz ballad, before things fire up with Step By Step, where Tumbleweed Mooney trades off peals of wailing harmonica against Wilson’s fiery guitar.

Drummer Amrik Sandhu nails the Bo Diddley beat on Let’s Go Barefootin’ It, the band sounding like they’re loving this jammy romp that is sure to get feet a-movin’ on dance floors from Texas to Timbucktoo.

My Faith Has Been Broken, Cool Runnin’ and Home are supersmooth blues – so smooth that herein lies the only negative thing I could think to say about this album: Overall Blues Thunder is too measured overall. Some actual thunder would have livened proceedings up a bit. That said, if studio polished slick blues is your thang, you’re in for a treat, and there is nothing wrong with it from where I’m sitting either: it’s just that a little rawness and grit would spice it up a bit.

And that’s exactly what Wilson & Co do on Black Coffee At Sunrise: a feisty rockabilly blues that references the ‘50s and swings with an irrepressible joie de vivre.

Sugar Sweet is a slinky blues with jazz flourishes, and Blues Thunder closes out with some sizzling guitar solos on Never Again.

Blues Thunder may be more cloudy day than electrical thunder storm, but Wilson plays like a star throughout on some very good songs, and is backed up by his excellent band to the hilt.

Category: CD Reviews