Product Description
FRANK BEY - PEACE
FRANK BEY
Peace
Nola Blue Records
He’s got dreams to remember – to borrow a soulful line from Otis. Eleven of those lasting mementos convene for Peace, an encore look back at the recorded career of Frank Bey, the soulman who transformed into a bluesman whenever his baritone dropped the hammer instead of trying a little tenderness. As such, the late vocalist, who passed in 2020, at age 74, could authenticate any song along life’s pendulum.
For instance, the way his warm, nuanced inflections curl around a softly plucked acoustic guitar heightens the yearning impact of “City Boy” even more so than on Keb’ Mo’s original blueprint. Contrast that unguarded solitude with the booming gruffness shot through “Blues Comes Knockin’.” He – plus a full, electrified band encrusted with harp blasts and guitar shrieks – leaves no room for doubt trouble is afoot. So, take your pick: gliding or gusting. One way or another, Bey hooks you.
However, that doesn’t preclude Bey from double-hooking performances. “If You Want Me” spreads like honey … to start. The lights dim as his lover-man croon floats atop knee-deep organ haze. Then, midway, a chilled guitar solo loses its cool, incinerating the spell. In reply, Bey reaches down to hit the gravel in his throat, before re-smoothing the final seconds. Fire and ice, packed together.
Moods rise and fall. Arrangements expand and contract. “One Thing Every Day” beams altruistic positivity while maintaining a hip-shake to its motion. Yet, trapped within that crushingly lonesome time between “Midnight And Day,” the blues slinks. “Walk With Me” bouncingly fills up the sound; “Bed For My Soul” strips it down to a stomp.
Peace’s wide-angle view benefits from reaching across labels as much as across years. In fact, most tracks get siphoned from early albums like 1998’s Steppin’ Out, right up to his 2020 swan song that posthumously earned a GRAMMY nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album, All My Dues Are Paid. All this digging even uncovers a secret gem. Because, despite a bank of riffing horns, a ricocheting guitar and a hopelessly infatuated Bey, the snappy groove to “That’s What Love Will Make You Do” sat unheard. Lost, no longer.
Rather than close on the hard times, and harder funk strut, of “Blues In The Pocket,” the big finish piggybacks Sam Cooke’s “Change Is Gonna Come” with John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Bey’s renditions put into play soul skills no doubt absorbed as a Georgia teenager on the road during the 1960s as the Otis Redding Revue’s opening act. Yeah, that Otis.
– Dennis Rozanski