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The Sun Is Shining Down
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The Sun Is Shining Down
Current price: $16.99
Barnes and Noble
The Sun Is Shining Down
Current price: $16.99
Size: CD
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Just after his 88th birthday in 2021,
John Mayall
, the long-reigning king of British blues, announced he was hanging up his road shoes. He also noted that he would continue to record and felt excited by the work he was doing.
The Sun Is Shining Down
(album number 60) was completed just before that announcement. As evidenced here, his ability to write and record vital modern blues with excellent musicians continues unabated. These ten tracks showcase a cast of invited all-star guests; most are guitar slingers -- after all, this is the man who gave us
Eric Clapton
,
Peter Green
Mick Taylor
, and countless others. His own band comprises guitarist
Carolyn Wonderland
, bassist
Greg Rzab
, drummer
Jay Davenport
, and a horn section for the proceedings.
Mayall
sings, plays piano, Wurlitzer, Hammond B-3, and harmonica.
Opener "Hungry and Ready" is a swinging Chicago blues with Mississippi-born bluesman
Melvin Taylor
playing lead guitar atop hard-grooving horns.
, in excellent voice, still plays a deft, wailing harmonica.
Taylor
's solo is mean and winding. South Carolina blues hero
Marcus King
takes the lead chair for "Can't Take No More," a funky roadhouse blues driven by B-3 and a cracking drum kit.
King
lays down layer after layer of tasty guitar fills. Former
Heartbreaker
and current
Fleetwood Mac
axeman
Mike Campbell
guests on
Bernard Allison
's "Chills and Thrills," offering his funky, yet precise economical style as the perfect foil for
's voice and evil B-3.
Buddy Miller
adds a nasty blues tone and grimy solo to "I'm as Good as Gone." Violinist
Scarlet Rivera
accompanies the band on "Deep Blue Sea." Her sweeping fills and labyrinthine solo expand the tune's frame to the breaking point, and
's piano work is exemplary, coming right out of the stride and NOLA traditions, adding color and texture with a Wurlitzer. Ukulele innovator
Jake Shimabukuro
trades tasty, snarling lines with
Wonderland
on "One Special Lady" (a jump blues) as
's B-3 prods the band to support them.
tears it up again on a cover of
Roosevelt Sykes
' "Driving Wheel." His stinging fills punctuate each sung line as the horns stroll and roil underneath.
shines as a soloist on the closing title track. Her sinister, steamy blues, razor-wire fills, and accents bubble and bump atmospherically around and under
's organ and moaning vocal while the band shuffles, swells, and vamps all around them.
doesn't merely trade lines with
, she offers a tight, soulful solo and plays call-and-response with herself, offering tight lines and smoky phrases. Hopefully, life goes according to plan and
gets to deliver many more recordings before he's done, because
sounds hungry and vital.
delivers these rough-and-ready blues like a champ. ~ Thom Jurek
John Mayall
, the long-reigning king of British blues, announced he was hanging up his road shoes. He also noted that he would continue to record and felt excited by the work he was doing.
The Sun Is Shining Down
(album number 60) was completed just before that announcement. As evidenced here, his ability to write and record vital modern blues with excellent musicians continues unabated. These ten tracks showcase a cast of invited all-star guests; most are guitar slingers -- after all, this is the man who gave us
Eric Clapton
,
Peter Green
Mick Taylor
, and countless others. His own band comprises guitarist
Carolyn Wonderland
, bassist
Greg Rzab
, drummer
Jay Davenport
, and a horn section for the proceedings.
Mayall
sings, plays piano, Wurlitzer, Hammond B-3, and harmonica.
Opener "Hungry and Ready" is a swinging Chicago blues with Mississippi-born bluesman
Melvin Taylor
playing lead guitar atop hard-grooving horns.
, in excellent voice, still plays a deft, wailing harmonica.
Taylor
's solo is mean and winding. South Carolina blues hero
Marcus King
takes the lead chair for "Can't Take No More," a funky roadhouse blues driven by B-3 and a cracking drum kit.
King
lays down layer after layer of tasty guitar fills. Former
Heartbreaker
and current
Fleetwood Mac
axeman
Mike Campbell
guests on
Bernard Allison
's "Chills and Thrills," offering his funky, yet precise economical style as the perfect foil for
's voice and evil B-3.
Buddy Miller
adds a nasty blues tone and grimy solo to "I'm as Good as Gone." Violinist
Scarlet Rivera
accompanies the band on "Deep Blue Sea." Her sweeping fills and labyrinthine solo expand the tune's frame to the breaking point, and
's piano work is exemplary, coming right out of the stride and NOLA traditions, adding color and texture with a Wurlitzer. Ukulele innovator
Jake Shimabukuro
trades tasty, snarling lines with
Wonderland
on "One Special Lady" (a jump blues) as
's B-3 prods the band to support them.
tears it up again on a cover of
Roosevelt Sykes
' "Driving Wheel." His stinging fills punctuate each sung line as the horns stroll and roil underneath.
shines as a soloist on the closing title track. Her sinister, steamy blues, razor-wire fills, and accents bubble and bump atmospherically around and under
's organ and moaning vocal while the band shuffles, swells, and vamps all around them.
doesn't merely trade lines with
, she offers a tight, soulful solo and plays call-and-response with herself, offering tight lines and smoky phrases. Hopefully, life goes according to plan and
gets to deliver many more recordings before he's done, because
sounds hungry and vital.
delivers these rough-and-ready blues like a champ. ~ Thom Jurek
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