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JOHN
LONG "LOST & FOUND"
Source: Sing Out Magazine
Date: 08/2006
Writer: Gvon T |
Producer
Al Blake comments that 56 year-old John Long “is,
hands down, the best post-modern, old school bluesman
working today” and based on this aptly titled,
forty- years-in-the-making debut album, that statement
is difficult to refute. Born in St. Louis, Missouri,
Long credits early exposure to locals like country
blues guitar genius Big Joe Williams and harmonica
players Doc Terry and Big George Brock along with
some serious wood-shedding with Chicago veteran
Homesick James Williamson with shaping and defining
his unique, pre-war Delta blues approach. That
proves all the more convincing given the quality
of his throwback, yet at times slyly modish, songwriting—often
aided by his older brother Claude. Efforts like
the opening string-snapper “Hokum Town”
(that sounds for all the world like some long
lost Robert Johnson 78), the emblematically titled
“Foot Stompin’ Daddy,” a cautionary
soap-opera blues titled “Pressure Cooker
(About To Blow)” and the soulful, gospel-tinged
ballad “Healin’ Touch” all exhibit
plenty of that vital devil-may-care attitude as
well as the octave-jumping vocal and instrumental
virtuosity of avowed boyhood idols such as Sonny
Boy Williamson and Tommy Johnson. Veteran West
Coast barrelhouse pianist and original member
of the legendary Hollywood Fats Band, Fred Kaplan,
rousingly complements Long on a trio of tracks,
eerily recalling the popular 1930s duo of Leroy
Carr and Scrapper Blackwell. Particular pleasers
are the elemental, rock-ribbed wailer “Hell
Cat” and the closing “piano version”
of Long’s autobiographical “Leavin’
St. Louis,” that brims with Kaplan’s
durable keyboard pounding while containing some
of Long’s most rhythmically fluent finger-picking.
He also atmospherically nods to another influence,
Muddy Waters, on a slide guitar suffused version
of Claude’s original “Greyhound Driver.”Fans
of John Hammond or Alvin Youngblood Hart will
find this ambitious project right up their alley.
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