FRANK GOLDWASSER "BLUJU" Source: Blues & Rhythm Date: 04/2007 Writer: Gary von Tersch

Born in Paris, France in 1960, guitarist/vocalist Goldwasser claims his “initial blues inspiration” came from Hound Dog Taylor’s “Natural Boogie” LP (the two closing bonus cuts here are enervating Taylor covers) but, after a relocation to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1981, he became engrossed in that region’s still hopping blues scene. In addition to becoming the band leader at Troyce Key’s famous Eli’s Mile High Club in Oakland, lots of local session and opening act work, three years touring with Richmond-based Jimmy McCracklin and appearing at various European festivals with the likes of Homesick James and Jimmy Dawkins (two guitar influences as well) Goldwasser also found time to do some recording for San Francisco’s small Backtrack concern (as Paris Slim) with new-found pals like Sonny Rhodes and Joe Louis Walker guesting. With the atmospheric assistance of pianist J.J. Malone, he references this period nicely here on the introspective ‘Three Sisters’, a detail-rich homage to an after-hours, down-home West Oakland club of that halcyon era. The set’s opening pair of cuts also allude to those East Bay days, paying deserved tribute to the two long-lived icons of the Oakland blues scene. ‘Feels Like Home’ has that mid-period, big band R&B McCracklin sound to it while ‘Back Door Key’ is an inspired cover of Lowell Fulson’s minor hit, with Red Young’s organ work effectively accenting Goldwasser’s rigorously idiomatic, no-frills fretwork that proves as forceful as it is soulful. Footnote: Although Fulson passed away in 1999, McCracklin is still performing at 85—these days with a crack nine-piece band and three background vocalists led by his daughter, Susie. I hear he’ll even be appearing in Italy this summer.

Aside from the bonus tracks (which were recorded in Santa Barbara, California in the winter of 2004) this is a reissue of an album originally released in Germany on poorly distributed Crosscut Records in 2003 and was recorded in 2001 by Randy Chortkoff at a variety of West Coast locations. Aside from the Oakland-oriented selections Goldwasser and crew (also including guitarists Kirk Eli Fletcher and Alex Schultz; Egyptian tablaist Souhail Kaspar and bassist Gerald Johnson) also dynamically reprise tunes by Jimmy Reed (the dynamite ‘I’m A Love You’); Elmore James and Phillip Walker—a furious re-working of his classic Elko label instrumental ‘Playing In The Park’, with Goldwasser and Walker going toe to toe—as well as impress on originals like the Ali Farka Toure-inspired ‘Don’t Take Away My Love’ and the slide guitar riven ‘Homesick Blues’, that borrows a hypnotic beat from Somalian pop star Maryam Mursal. I’m also fond of the instrumental ‘Melba’s Bump’ with its danceable rhythms, and the New Orleans second-line, funk-grooved ‘Petit A Petit’.

Here’s hoping this major label disc’s success leads to the impassioned French blues ambassador getting back in the studio as a leader again soon. His cosmopolitan, progressive slant on the idiom is a breath of fresh air and quite appealing to these lobes.