Best of What’s New

My exploration of new music continues with the latest installment in the new recurring feature.

Larkin Poe/Holy Ghost Fire

Holy Ghost Fire is the second single from Larkin Poe’s upcoming fifth full-length studio album Self Made Man, slated for June 12. Previously, I covered this band here, which have been called the “little sisters of The Allman Brothers,” given the southern flair of their blues and roots rock. Larkin Poe are 29-year-old Rebecca Lovell (vocals, guitars, keyboards, drums) and her one year and four months older sister Megan Lovell (vocals, lap steel, slide guitar, keyboards), who have performed under that name since January 2010. With kickass guitar playing and great harmony vocals, these two young ladies are just amazing, in my opinion. Apart from recorded music, they have a very active YouTube channel that among others includes their Tip o’ the Hat fun video series featuring stripped-back covers of many well-known rock and blues tunes.

Daniel Merriweather/Rain

This 38-year-old R&B artist, who hails from Melbourne, Australia, has been active professionally since 2002. He has worked with UK songwriter and record producer Mark Ronson, who also produced Merriweather’s solo debut album Love & War from June 2009. It peaked at no. 2 on the UK charts. His catalog to date also includes two EPs and various singles, the most recent of which is this tune, Rain, which was released last Friday, April 3. What caught my attention here are the vocals and the groove, which remind me a bit of Earth, Wind & Fire.

Jack Savoretti/Andrà Tutto Bene

I used to listen to Italian music much more often in my teenage years than I do nowadays. So I’m particularly happy I came across this ballad by Jack Savoretti, who Wikipedia describes as an English acoustic solo singer of Italian descent. Since 2007, he has released six English language studio albums. His most recent one, Singing to Strangers from March 2019, became a chart-topper in the UK. Among others, it includes a co-write with Bob Dylan, Touchy Situation. Released last Friday, April 3, Andrà Tutto Bene (everything will be fine) not only is Savoretti’s first song in Italian but also a tune to raise money for Policlinico San Martino Hospital in Genoa, Italy to support the town’s fight against the coronavirus. As NME recently reported, Savoretti penned the beautiful tune together with Italian fans during a writing session he recently broadcast on Instagram Live. I love the idea to combine music with a cause, especially one we can all well relate to.

Danielle Cormier/Berlin

Danielle Cormier is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter. According to her website, the 23-year-old is a pure and powerful voice for the new age…she credits her love for the arts to seeing her first Broadway show at five years old. From there Cormier learned to play the piano, guitar, performed in many school plays and regional theatre productions. Then, she began to write. In 2017, Cormier released her debut album Fire & Ice, for which she wrote nine of the ten original tracks. Thanks to producer Adam Lester, who also plays guitar in the band backing Peter Frampton during his current farewell tour, Frampton contributed lead guitar on one of the tunes. Berlin, a lovely folk-oriented song, is Cormier’s most recent single released on February 28.

Sources: Wikipedia; NME; Danielle Cormier website; YouTube

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Peter Frampton Releases Covers Album Featuring His Favorite Blues Classics

Peter Frampton these days seems to get the kind of attention I imagine he hasn’t seen since 1976 when he broke through with Frampton Comes Alive!, one of the most acclaimed live rock albums. Unfortunately, the story has been a mixed bag for the 69-year-old rock guitarist. The good news is his new covers album All Blues, which is out via UMe since yesterday. The not so great side of the story: his recently disclosed diagnosis with inclusion body myositis, a progressive autoimmune disease causing muscle inflammation, weakness and atrophy. Since the condition eventually is likely to prevent Frampton from playing guitar, he decided to do a farewell tour and retire from touring thereafter – and ultimately I guess from music altogether.

But let’s focus on the positive. While by its very nature a covers album doesn’t really present anything new, this is a great collection of classic blues tunes, which nicely displays Frampton’s blues chops. And, btw, he’s a pretty decent vocalist as well. The rock guitarist is getting a little from his friends, including Kim Wilson, Larry Carlton, Sonny Landreth and Steve Morse. All Blues was co-produced by Frampton and Chuck Ainlay, and recorded at Frampton’s studio in Nashville, together with his long-time touring band featuring Adam Lester (guitar, vocals), Rob Arthur (keyboards, guitar, vocals) and Dan Wojciechowski (drums).

“I have always loved to play the blues,” Frampton explains on his website. “When we formed Humble Pie, the first material we played together was just that. For the last two summers I had been playing a handful of blues numbers every night on stage with Steve Miller Band. I enjoyed this immensely and it gave me the idea of doing an ‘All Blues’ album live in the studio with my band. We started the resulting sessions nine days after coming off the road last year. Over a two-week period, we recorded 23 tracks, all live in the studio. The energy of these tracks is completely different from building a track one instrument at a time…I’m not sure if you can say we had fun playing the blues. But we definitely did.” With that, let’s get to some it!

Here’s the great opener I Just Want To Make Love To You. Written by Willie Dixon in 1954 and first recorded by Muddy Waters, Frampton’s version features great harmonica playing by Kim Wilson, who is best know as the lead vocalist and frontman of The Fabulous Thunderbirds.

Next up: A nice instrumental take of Georgia On My Mind, which was made famous by Ray Charles in 1960. And while as such the tune is mostly associated with Charles, it was actually co-written by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell in 1930 and first recorded that year. A few weeks ago when I first learned about the album, I read somewhere that when the song was proposed to Frampton, he saw no way his voice could give it justice. But since he digs the tune, he decided to cover it as an instrumental – great choice, I really like Frampton’s tone here!

All Blues, the title track, is another beautiful instrumental. It features guitarist extraordinaire Larry Carlton, who has played with artists like Steely Dan and Joni Mitchell, and has been a member of jazz fusion band The Crusaders. All Blues was written by Miles Davis and first appeared on his 1959 album Kind Of Blue. Again, I love the guitar tone on this cover.The smooth jazzy groove is pretty cool as well!

Next up: The Thrill Is Gone, one of my all-time favorite blues tunes I just couldn’t skip. Co-written by Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell in 1951 and first recorded by Hawkins that same year, it became a signature song and major hit for B.B. King in 1970. The thrill is definitely not gone on this great rendition, which features Louisiana blues guitarist Sonny Landreth.

The final track I’d like to call out is Frampton’s cover of I’m A King Bee. In part I decided to select the 1957 Slim Harpo swamp blues classic since it includes what became a distinct feature of Frampton’s sound in the ’70s – a talk box!

Similar to the great new Santana album I reviewed in the previous post (btw, I can’t remember the last Friday that saw the release of two great albums the same day!),  All Blues on some level makes me feel I should see Frampton during his upcoming tour, especially given it looks like it is going to be the last opportunity. But again, it’s the same old dilemma that I simply can’t see everybody I’d like to see, and I’m probably already going beyond what I should do – unfortunately! And while he’s undoubtedly a great guitarist, I’m not sure I’m enough of a Peter Frampton fan to justify buying a ticket.

Frampton’s farewell tour, which has many dates together Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening (sounds like fun to me as well!), kicks off in Tulsa, Olka. on June 18. It won’t be until Sep 13 before they come to New York City’s Madison Square Garden. I guess this means I have some more time to change my mind! 🙂 The current last scheduled show is Oct 12 in Concord, Calif. The full schedule is here.

Sources: Wikipedia, Peter Frampton website, JamBase, YouTube