Blue and Lonesome (2016)


 


  1. Just Your Fool
  2. Commit a Crime
  3. Blue and Lonesome
  4. All of Your Love
  5. I Gotta Go
  6. Everybody Knows About My Good Thing
  7. Ride 'Em on Down
  8. Hate To See You Go
  9. Hoo Doo Blues
  10.Little Rain
  11.Just Like I Treat You
  12.I Can't Quit You Baby

 

It probably isn’t a coincidence that the band frequently dubbed as “The Greatest Rock and Roll Band” has their roots so entrenched in Blues music. In fact, the first four albums by this band were mostly covers of Blues songs with a light peppering of originals. For whatever reason, as much as I love rock music and as much as I love the Rolling Stones, I never really cared that much for Blues music. In fact, whenever I’m listening or watching on of their live shows, they seem to always throw in an obligatory blues cover, and this is always the weakest point in the show for my tastes. I mostly tune the particular song out.

So my review of this release is heavily biased. I’m guessing that if you’re a big fan of the Blues, you would probably love this album. The guys certainly sound as though they are in top form, and technology in the recording studio certainly gives these tracks a significant boost over those early records that are now more than 50 years old. As I write this review, I can’t honestly recollect any of the titles of these covers. Not a good thing from my perspective. So, yes, I’m biased. This record just doesn’t do that much for me.

It could be that the well was simply dry of new material. The last full-length studio album, A Bigger Bang was released more than 10 years prior. The one before that, Bridges to Babylon, came out two decades prior. So maybe new ideas were simply no longer in abundance. Unlike many “purists”, I tended to really enjoy those last two records, so my love for this band isn’t isolated to the “glory” years. In short, I would have preferred a release of new, original cuts.

From what I’ve heard, Eric Clapton appears on a couple of tracks. I couldn’t, for the life of me, identify which ones. Again, I’m just not a fan of the genre. Kudos for the guys for keeping the machine going well into their seventies, however.


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