Stacy Mitchhart -- Gotta Get The Feeling Back (Dr Sam Records).
This is Cincinnati born Stacy Mitchhart’s ninth album yet he remains strangely unknown on this side of the Atlantic. This latest release features seven original songs and four covers and is sure to get him wider acclaim. The eponymous title track is a big, brassy opener, a contemporary blues with incisive guitar. I Can’t Get Enough Of Your Lovin’s chorus is just Living For The City but it is funky and driven by the bass and Mitchhart’s slide guitar lifts the middle section. Despite Mitchhart’s claim that he has never been a big Zeppelin fan, there is a Led Zeppelin tribute on Black Dog/Whole Lotta Love and he gives us a little twist on it by using acoustic slide. He’s no Robert Plant on the vocal side but he does have a good voice in his own rite. He also gives an interesting analysis of the line ‘Big legged woman got no soul’ before moving on to Whole Lotta Love, staying on slide. This is, at just over 8 minutes, a very good job. He sticks with the slide guitar for Blow On Them Baby and his dextrous playing and machine gun delivery are just perfect for this minimalist instrumental. The Blues Has Got You Bad is blues chic with stylish organ and horns. Additionally, Mitchhart’s guitar solo does not disappoint, yet again.
He gets the funk back for Better Off Without You and the album is getting better and better, track by track. The fuzzed guitar is excellent and his vocal is improving all the time. Given Me Reasons is a Kansas style blues, a piano blues with clean sounds and a welcome sax break. It was written at 02.30 and the temperature was still 85 degrees (obviously nit in Scotland then). There is no need to explain the subject of Dog House Blues (we’ve all been there boys, haven‘t we). There is a fiddle, a mandolin and even some dogs on this stomping Country blues. I’ll Play The Blues For You sees the return of the female backing singers, Dorothea, Dee and Raquel, and the sophisticated horn section. Mitchhart’s pointed guitar rounds the whole thing off. The smooth acoustic blues of Duane Allman’s Whipping Post has got it all and the live Blue Monday shows that he is a good live singer. It’s a slow but powerful finish to an album that provides a number of highs and there’s some bonus video at the end.
http://www.stacymitchhart.com/
David Blue.