HEART TO HAND
BY BARRY LEVENSON
STORYVILLE RECORDS
When I was a kid growing up in Mississippi, you could have Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. The best guitar player in the whole wide world was Michael Bloomfield, the Bob Dylan-Paul Butterfield-Electric Flag guitarist who could peel paint off the wall while putting a Picasso on it at the same time. Bloomfield died a tragic death about two decades ago and I never thought I would hear his likes again.
BY BARRY LEVENSON
STORYVILLE RECORDS
When I was a kid growing up in Mississippi, you could have Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton. The best guitar player in the whole wide world was Michael Bloomfield, the Bob Dylan-Paul Butterfield-Electric Flag guitarist who could peel paint off the wall while putting a Picasso on it at the same time. Bloomfield died a tragic death about two decades ago and I never thought I would hear his likes again.
So much for thinking.
In flies this album from a guy named Barry Levenson and this guitarist from Pittsburgh and All Over has put down one fabulous blues album with the taste, color and power that Michael Bloomfield would love and admire, I'm sure. Levenson's another one of these players whose been around a long, long time in just about every capacity -- musician, writer, producer, arranger and has played with all the greats in blues and jazz and I mean ALL of them. So now it's his turn at the spotlight with his first solo album on the new U.S. branch of the proud European blues label, Storyville.
Produced, written and arranged by Levenson, the album has 11 tunes and provides about an hour of an astonishing ride through the blues spectrum. All but 3 of the songs are instrumental.
I don't like instrumentals.
But I loved these.
Levenson, backed by his longtime rhythm section, keeps you interested and dazzled on every tune and the vocal cuts are perfectly placed. This is a brilliant CD and a true labor of love that must not be missed.
Jack Clifford
Memphis, Tennessee
www.bluespeak.com
In flies this album from a guy named Barry Levenson and this guitarist from Pittsburgh and All Over has put down one fabulous blues album with the taste, color and power that Michael Bloomfield would love and admire, I'm sure. Levenson's another one of these players whose been around a long, long time in just about every capacity -- musician, writer, producer, arranger and has played with all the greats in blues and jazz and I mean ALL of them. So now it's his turn at the spotlight with his first solo album on the new U.S. branch of the proud European blues label, Storyville.
Produced, written and arranged by Levenson, the album has 11 tunes and provides about an hour of an astonishing ride through the blues spectrum. All but 3 of the songs are instrumental.
I don't like instrumentals.
But I loved these.
Levenson, backed by his longtime rhythm section, keeps you interested and dazzled on every tune and the vocal cuts are perfectly placed. This is a brilliant CD and a true labor of love that must not be missed.
Jack Clifford
Memphis, Tennessee
www.bluespeak.com
