It's impossible to fault
Kenny Sultan
's playing on
West Coast Blues
-- but it's impossible to get worked up about it, either. The man's a superb instrumentalist, certainly on a technical level, with dazzling fingerwork on a cut like
"The Sick Boogie,"
which is all fingers flying around the fretboard, or the impressionistic
"Shangri-La,"
whose
blues
connection seems tenuous, at best. But there seems to be precious little feel behind the notes. This is the
as played, not as lived, and that makes for a huge difference. His treatment of
"Dust My Broom"
hits all the right notes, but it's not
Robert Johnson
or
Elmore James
, by any stretch of the imagination. Of course, they couldn't have played with the dexterity that powers
"Pony Up"
"State Street Crawl,"
but they were the real deal. To be fair,
Sultan
's at his best when he's more thoughtful, dragging out the 12-string for
"Cigarette Blues"
and
"Brown Whiskey Blooze,"
where the resonance of the strings lets the notes hang. And in calling his album
, he does hang out a shingle about the style, free of any of the regional tics which have always been a trademark of the genre, leaving it clean -- maybe even sterile -- and somewhat homogenized, owing far more to
Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson
(whose sax lick is the basis of the title cut) than
Blind Blake
,
Charley Patton
, or even
Muddy Waters
. The
was always about pain, and pain has never been clean or easy. It's down, dirty, and gritty. It's just a shame this album, for all its skill, isn't stoked by those fires. ~ Chris Nickson