#736- > Janiva Magness - Back For Me (PhillyCheezeBlues.Blogspot.com)

 

2025 – Blue Elan Records

Release Date : Mar. 28, 2025

By Phillip Smith; Mar. 15, 2025

Original source : phillycheezeblues.blogspot.com

Janiva Magness has been one of my favorite blues singers for quite a while.  Her amazing talent has earned her seven Blues Music Awards including the BB King Entertainer of the Year in 2009, and a Grammy nomination for her 2016 album Love Wins Again.  Magness’ seventeenth release Back For Me shows she is still as innovative and fierce as ever.  Produced by her longtime friend and collaborator Dave Darling, this record teams the blues icon with an amazing short list of guests comprised of Joe Bonamassa, Sue Foley, and Jesse Dayton.  With a mission to shine a light on the B-sides of a few of the heavy-hitter songwriters such as Bill Withers, Ray LaMontagne, Allen Toussaint, Doyle Bramhall II, Tracy Nelson, and Irma Thomas, Magness creates a fabulous listening experience. Backing her in the studio for this release is Darling on guitar, Ian Walker on bass, and W.F. Quinn Smith on drums.    

“Masterpiece”, featuring Bonamassa on guitar and accompanied by Sasha Smith on B3, welcomes the listener with an infectious walking blues rhythm and smoking-hot guitar licks.  Her cover of Bramhall’s “November” from the 2016 album Rich Man, is beautifully performed and expertly approached in such a way which leaves me in a melancholy state.  I love the infusion of the Latin beat and Santana-like guitar from John Schroeder.  It’s great to hear Sue Foley guesting on blues-rocker “Holes”.  Magness sings this with a fearless delivery as Foley mesmerizes me with an amazing performance.  A jazz-fueled bassline, and side of masterful percussion instill a brilliant cadence for “You Can Bring Me Flowers”.  It’s a splendid slice of beat-poetry put to music with Robert ‘Chalo’ Ortiz on guitar.  Smith pours a little barrel-house over Allen Toussaint’s “Hittin’ On Nothing’”.  This selection originally sung by Irma Thomas, features guitar-slinger Jesse Dayton and brings the record to a searing end.

Back For Me is a blues album which absolutely shines in every aspect. It is sure to be an instant classic.

 

---

WEBSITE & SOCIALS

 Janiva Magness

https://www.janivamagness.com/

https://janiva-magness.bandcamp.com/music

For other PhillyCheeze reviews featuring Janiva Magness follow these links  :

https://phillycheezeblues.blogspot.com/2016/03/janiva-magness-love-wins-again.html

https://phillycheezeblues.blogspot.com/2016/03/janiva-magness-live-riverside-casino.html

#367 : Sugaray Rayford - Somebody Save Me

2018 – Forty Below Records

Release Date : Mar. 1, 2019

By Phillip Smith; Dec. 22, 2018

My first exposure to Caron “Sugaray” Rayford was through listening to the Double Dynamite record from the Mannish Boys.  Rayford sang lead on nine of the twenty-six tracks on that double album.  Take a listen to any of his music, and it will become so very evident why he was nominated for four Blues Music Awards in 2018.  Written and produced by Forty Below Records founder Eric Corne, Somebody Save Me, the latest from Sugaray Rayford is bathed in the goodness of Sixties soul.  Rayford’s suave and powerful voice is accented quite nicely on this new recording with interesting hooks and a tight-knit band.  It’s much akin to the music of Charles Bradley, which I simply adore. The backbone of the band on this album consists of Rick Holmstrom on guitar, Matt Tecu on drums, Taras Prodaniuk on bass, and Sasha Smith on keys/organ.

The album begins with “The Revelator”, a hypnotic track with an Isaac Hayes delivery that magically beckons me like a porch light to a moth.  The bassline from Prodaniuk was quick to embed itself deep within my subconscious.  “Time to Get Moving” is a blues-soaked adrenalin jolt.  Its heightened pace is fortified with a groovy guitar twang from Holmstrom and topped with a juicy harp performance from Corne.  One listen to “You and I” and the music of Memphis’ Stax Records immediately comes to mind.  There’s certainly a call-back to the Memphis Horns with the sweet sounds of brass from Mark Pender on trumpet, Ron Dziubla on sax, and Richard A Rosenberg on trombone.  Swampy and dangerous, there’s an obvious Howlin’ Wolf vibe radiating off “I’d Kill For You, Honey”.  “Angels and Devils” keeps the atmosphere ominous, and unpredictable.  If ever there was a need for a blues-centric James Bond theme, this song would be on the top of the list.  Sugaray takes it nice and slow like Teddy Pendergrass on title track, “Somebody Save Me”.  His smooth, buttery vocals delicately dance atop a backing of violin and cello.  This definitely sets the mood for a slow dance.  

Sugaray is the real deal and Somebody Save Me is an amazing listen. 

---

For more information about the artist, visit this website :  https://sugarayblues.com

#339 : Eric Corne - Happy Songs for the Apocalypse

2018 – Forty Below Records

By Phillip Smith; June 30, 2018

Eric Corne, founder and president of Forty Below Records, has brought fabulous new artists like Sam Morrow and Jaime Wyatt to my attention and recorded established favorites such as John Mayall, Walter Trout, Joe Walsh, Lucinda Williams, Edgar Winter, Joe Bonamassa, John Doe (X) and Glen Campbell.  Happy Songs for the Apocalypse, the latest release from award winning producer/singer/song-writer Eric Corne is rather reflective of the world today, and is an amazing listen.  The dozen original tracks are beautifully written and tightly woven together in the assembly of this album.

I love the way Corne splendidly starts the album off with “Mad World”, his prophetic account of the beginning of the end.  Eamon Ryland lends a dreamy texture to this personal favorite on pedal steel.  Doug Pettibone (Lucinda Williams) provides a delicate Dobro performance on “The Guilded Age” while Corne sings of the wolves of Wall Street. Sasha Smith on dolceola and violinist Freddy Koella (Bob Dylan, KD Lang, Dr. John) inject a bright Celtic sound into Corne’s dispirited observance of current day politics “Short Wave Preachers”.

Corne taps into the spirit of the early Rolling Stones with “Ridin’ with Lady Luck” and “Locomotion”.  “Ridin’ with Lady Luck” features the legendary Walter Trout laying down some fabulous licks on lead guitar and Corne ripping it up on harp.  The excitement builds as Smith lays the piano groundwork on the upbeat “Locomotion”.  Guest David Ralicke (Degue Fever, Beck) orchestrates a rich horn arrangement on this captivating song as Corne revs it up with a side of guitar twang and more harp.

Corne utterly wins me over with Happy Songs for the Apocalypse. It is definitely a delightful and intelligent listen. 

---