Product Description
TAB BENOIT
I Hear Thunder
Whiskey Bayou
When Tab Benoit stepped away from recording after 2011’s Medicine, he never stopped playing. In that time, Benoit could be found relentlessly touring the States, starting his own record label, Whiskey Bayou in 2017, signing and producing numerous deserving artists, and oftentimes hiding behind the drum kit offering his musical support of the artists he’d helped. But no new recordings.
So, when he returned to the studio to record one new song for his touring, that one song became three which became ten. Buoyed by his musical comfort zone, Anders Osborne (guitar), Corey Duplechin (bass), and Terrence Higgins (drums), Tab Benoit knew this felt right.
When artists, poets, writers, and musicians feel that “the world is too much with us,” they sometimes return to their familiar past for inspiration. For a Houma, LA, boy like Benoit, that encouragement might come from the area’s comforts like Gulf storms, gators, bayous, bull frogs, even a mama’s sage advice to the boy.
The title cut opens the recording with a fury. “I Hear Thunder” opens the CD with nervous warnings of those coming actual or metaphorical storms on the horizon. For a southern Louisiana homeboy like Benoit, the song recalls every devastating weather event Benoit and his area has endured. His frantic, Hendrix-like guitar solo approximates the agitation that accompanies those more frequent bayou storms.
The other important song is Benoit’s confessional “Overdue.” Here, the only song without Osborne’s co-writing aid, Benoit bares his soul to his legions of fans as he explains his 14-year recording hiatus. It is evident through his honesty here and in other songs that he has found a strength and inspiration from those early awakenings of his natural world in opposition to the chaotic world.
The playful, Creedence-like “Watching The Gators Roll In,” finds Benoit recalling the heartwarming, childhood joy of his magical bayou life. When Benoit and Osborne slow down the blues on the Cajun waltz sounding “Still Gray,” listeners can feel the importance of Benoit’s return to a combination of nature and life experiences for comfort. The CD closes with “Bayou Man,” Benoit’s autobiographical opus of himself and the place that will forever be part of his musical art.
But Benoit gives us all more. Every Benoit fan will enjoy songs like “The Ghost Of Gatemouth Brown” and “Inner Child,” where Benoit and Osborne explore each other’s musical imagination. In “Why Why,” Benoit tackles some of today’s unanswerable questions that have haunted him like “Why do we feel so helpless” and “Why are people putting down each other when we are all just sisters and brothers.” Benoit adds George Porter Jr.’s seasoned bass on “Little Queenie” and “I’m A Write That Down.”
Like every Tab Benoit outing, live or record, these ten songs are stripped bare of any outside clutter. Because Benoit’s arrangements are legendary – explosive guitars anchored by a rock solid rhythm section – this album is solid proof of a refreshed soul.
– Art Tipaldi
TAB BENOIT NEW RECORD ~ I HEAR THUNDER ~ TO BE RELEASED ON AUGUST 30TH
I HEAR THUNDER the long-awaited release by Tab Benoit will be available on August 30th on Whiskey Bayou Records. Ten solid tracks that highlight Tab’s original guitar style and the great songwriting of the Benoit / Osborne songwriting team. Benoit does more than just play the blues; he defines its future while paying homage to its rich past. I Hear Thunder is a must for roots music fans.
1. I Hear Thunder
2. The Ghost of Gatemouth Brown
3. Still Gray
4. Inner Child
5. Watching the Gators Roll In
6. Overdue
7. Why, Why
8. Little Queenie
9. I’m A Write That Down
10. Bayou Man
SHEMEKIA COPELANDBlame It On EveAlligator Records
If you like message songs, topical songs, and political blues tunes, it’s likely you’re already a fan of Shemekia Copeland, the Harlem and Teaneck, N.J., raised daughter of Texas bluesman Johnny “Clyde” Copeland, who passed away in July 1997. Ten of the 12 songs are co-written by John Hahn, her songwriting partner and longtime producer. As a former advertising executive, Hahn has become one of America’s top-shelf blues and roots songwriters. Chockfull of topical songs and political commentaries, Copeland is in fine form on this album, something of a break from her three previous discs, Done Come Too Far, Uncivil War, and America’s Child. She opens with two songs that draw the listener in, “Blame It On Eve,” and “Tough Mother,” the latter an autobiographical tribute to her late mother, Sandra Copeland, Johnny’s second wife. Sandra was always in her daughter’s corner, from her earliest days singing with dad at the Cotton Club, Manny’s Car Wash, and the Old Bay Restaurant in New Brunswick, N.J. In fact, Copeland made her radio debut on my show, The Low-Budget Blues Program at Rutgers University, with her father when she was 16. To see her emerge as an international starlet carrying on blues traditions while helping the idiom continue to evolve has been fascinating to me over the years, as Johnny – and I, frankly – always knew teenaged Copeland would evolve into a fantastic performer. She shines on “Blame It On Eve” “Tough Mother” “Tell The Devil,” and a song co-penned by contemporary folksinger Susan Werner, “Wine O’Clock.” Copeland also tells the story of Tee Tot Payne, the obscure African-American credited with teaching Hank Williams. As is often the case, she also does a magnificent job with one of her late father’s songs, “Down On Bended Knee.” The CD ends with Ronald Miller’s “Heaven Help Us All.” Like her earlier releases recorded with Will Kimbrough in Nashville, a bevy of veteran players guest on Blame It On Eve, including Luther Dickinson of The North Mississippi Allstars, Charlie Hunter, lap steel player Jerry Douglas, post-punk-Americana rocker Alejandro Escovedo, and sacred steel player DeShawn Hickman, who contributes some tasty licks on “Tell The Devil.” Blame It On Eve is a great collection of blues and roots music songs that demonstrate to cynical newcomers to modern blues and moldy figs just how broad and diverse blues music can be.– Richard J. Skelly