Garden is first and the riff and slide solo are enough to justify buying this album! Eccentric Man is just as good and I think I will be digging the original vinyl out very soon and listen to these back to back they are that good. There’s A Train is the third acoustic slow and gentle with lyrical cliches that work and the guitar throughout is worth concentrating on and the solo is lyrical in a very slow Spanish way.Īfter the three slow ones, we move into the land of the Groundhogs with three from the genius that was That Christ for The Bomb and, with Pustelnik’s crew and Dave doing a great Tony McPhee, it is a great tribute and yet still has a new feel…the playing is superb and pays homage and justice to the original.

You Danced In My Kitchen slows down still further with an acoustic outing of clarity, sadness and beauty…the solo is in harmony with the lyrics and speaks just as lucidly. The acoustic backing is just right and the solo is a pearler. I Want The Blues is err, our blues with a hint of the country style of blues of yore. Next up we are welcomed with delicious guitar and keys on the intro to Poor Boy…the composition shows how a deep and thorough understanding of the blues can be ably reflected in a new song: it has a soulful touch in the vocals and the Hammond and guitar provide a perfect backdrop before we get a guitar solo proper that has a simplicity that astounds in its effectiveness…too short though. The title track adds some harmonica to bring a familiar blues structure to life on this song from Muddy Waters (although it is credited to James Cotton in the sleeve notes who did do a very different, funked-up version eleven years later): regardless the quality of both are reflected in this version. I Like My Chicken Fried is a recipe (sorry!) for instrumental wizardry…listen to the bass, the brass, the Hammond, the guitar, the drums, the vocals individually or you will miss how clever this new composition is…the Hammond solo is subtle but effective and the guitar phrasing in and around it exquisite even they’re both a bit low in the mix. This version takes this powerful song and, with a horn section, Hammond and tasty guitar, do it more than justice…think the Chicago blues masters in a modern studio and that’s the kind of feel I get listening to this lovely slice The opener is from the pen of BB King and Jules Taub It’s My Own Fault has grown and developed from a song BB did in 1952 called My Own fault Darlin’. One More Mile is, happily for us, the first of three albums to come over the next months and carries his trademark vocal style and a mix of originals and covers, including some choice Groundhogs tunes recorded with Ken Pustelnik’s authentic version of that seminal band…plenty to look forward to then. Since then, he returned to the blues that captivated him in the 60s when he started his musical journey, and has released some serious blues albums and, thanks to the dreaded lurgy and the subsequent lockdown, he has used the internet to pull together some remarkable musicians and complete this latest release.

I still hear of people who think that Blonde On Blonde was an 80s pop band…well they weren’t! They were in fact an innovative and progressive (in every sense) rock band of the 70s with Dave Thomas fronting them for successful albums and appearances.

Dave one and all