THE LEGENDARY RHYTHM & BLUES REVUE Source: Living Blues Magazine Date: 07/2008 Writer: Lee Hildebrand

Captured on land (at five different venues in California and Nevada) and at sea (during a Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise).

Command Performance offers some knock-out blues and soul featuring the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue’s four core members – guitar slingers Tommy Castro and Ronnie Baker Brooks, pianist Deanna Bogart, and harmonica blower Magic Dick, who all alternate on lead vocals – plus guests Curtis Salgado, Marcia Ball, and Elvin Bishop. Bringing blues artists together in all-star package shows (Mark Hummel’s Blues Harmonica Blowouts and Randy Chortkoff’s Mannish Boys, for example) is a hot concept, to which the Castro-led Legendary Rhythm & Blues Revue is a welcome addition. And it’s especially welcome to hear Castro getting back to his blues roots after several Blind Pig albums that veered more in a rock direction.

A commanding, deeply soulful singer and torrid guitar soloist, Castro takes the helm vocally on an original blues shuffle titled If I Had A Nickel, the boogaloo-style High Off The Hog, and the early James Brown number I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On, and sings the Valentinos’ Looking For A Love in duet with Bogart. Chicagoan Brooks focuses on Windy City-style material, including Muddy Waters’ She’s Nineteen Years Old, but he is also quite gripping on an original southern soul ballad, See You Hurt No More, written in the Otis Redding-Steve Cropper manner and delivered as a vocal duet with Bogart. Bogart is also spotlighted singing and playing some strong two-fisted piano on Billy Preston’s Will It Go Around In Circles and her own Still The Girl In The Band. Magic Dick, whose harmonica prowess is better know in the rock realm, is featured instrumentally on his old J. Geils Band showstopper Whammer Jammer and also sings and blows on Litter Walter’s Tell Me Mana. Salgado is in fine form singing and playing mouth harp on Jimmy Rogers’ If It Ain’s Me, and Ball takes the listener on a rocking ride to New Orleans, singing and pumping piano on Sea Cruise.

Nearly all the participants join in for high On The Hog, a jam session recorded at sea with solos by Castro, Brooks, Dick, Bogart, Bishop, tenor saxophonist Keith Crossan, and organist Mike Emerson. Drummer Chris Sandoval and bassist Scot (cq) Sutherland, both the Tommy Castro Band, anchor the proceedings solidly throughout this highly satisfying, variety-packed CD.