Product Description
TOM HAMBRIDGE - DOWN THE HATCH
RELEASE DATE AUGUST 29, 2025. ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!
TOM HAMBRIDGE
Down The Hatch
Quarto Valley Records
Is this Tom Hambridge’s ninth album…or his ninety-ninth?
Indisputably one of the busiest figures in the blues world, Hambridge wears many hats. This is his ninth titular album, but for the last 30 years he has produced myriad more, including releases by Buddy Guy, Susan Tedeschi, George Thorogood, and Christone “Kingfish” Ingram. Among the results are his four Grammy awards. He began playing drums at age five and has beaten the skins on innumerable albums. Oh, by the way, he has written over one thousand songs.
His latest release features a dozen of those originals, delivered with the adept cooperation of several musicians. Collaborating on most of the tunes are his long-time bass guitarist colleague Tommy MacDonald and renowned session guitarist Rob McNelley, both of whom shine. McNelley’s playing is consistently fiery and soulful; listening to him is like taking a master class in guitar. Hambridge’s impeccable drumming is crisp and propulsive.
Hambridge’s approach to his art is embodied in lyrics from the set’s first two songs. On “Willie Dixon’s Gone,” a lament for the loss of that great bassist and songwriter, the band tears into the track at full speed while Hambridge’s raspy vocal declares that “rock-and-roll was in my head but blues was in my heart.” Blues-rock is this ensemble’s strength, but they can also slow it down, as with the succeeding “Everytime I Sing The Blues,” wherein Hambridge asserts his second consistent theme: “I’m just trying to tell the truth/every time I sing the blues.”
As expected from such a prolific songwriter, all of the tracks sport creative lyrics. In the shuffle “I Want You Bad,” a cry for love and lust, he sings “A farmer wants a crop, a lawyer wants a case/I want to get with you like a birthday wants a cake.” In “I Wanna Know About You,” he asks of a prospective lover, “What’s inside of your mind, is your life complete/Do you cry alone, is your sugar sweet?”
Along the way in this set there are a few interesting departures from unvarnished blues. “Start Drinking Early,” for example, has a country music vibe. “What Does That Tell You” sounds strikingly like vintage 1970s Rolling Stones both in its musical aura and Hambridge’s Mick Jagger-esque vocal. “What Might Have Been,” with some neat organ riffs courtesy of Noah Forbes and some George Harrison-like guitar from Bob Britt, reminded me a little of the Beatles, and “I Wanna Know About You” evoked Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Nobody’s heart will be broken by this album, though. From scorching to poignant, it is a definite winner.
– Dan Stevens
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