Friday, November 28, 2008


The Mick Fleetwood Blues Band (feat Rick Vito) – Blue Again! (Hypertension).

The granddaddy of British percussion is back with a band that is only half filled with ex-Fleetwood Mac stars. Fleetwood is returning to his blues roots with this series of songs and he has never sounded better. Rick Vito’s Red Hot Gal opens this live album. It’s a standard electric blues played by top musicians and with slide guitar to the fore. Just try and stop yourself joining in. There was always going to be a big Fleetwood Mac influence on this album and Peter Green’s Looking For Somebody is given a wonderfully atmospheric treatment by Vito (another link to Fleetwood Mac, albeit a different incarnation). The energetic Fleetwood Boogie allows the pianist to let loose and another Peter Green song, Stop Messin Around has Vito carrying on his great guitar work. Rattlesnake Shake is much heavier than Green’s version and although I have never heard of Vito’s When I Do The Lucky Devil before, I have just stumbled across a wonderful boogie – absolute class! The inclusion of another Peter Green song, Love That Burns, continues that Fleetwood Mac link and shows that Green’s songs have become standards in their own rite. Rollin Man/Bayou Queen is a great shuffling blues with little discernable seams between the songs and has Vito pinpointing the notes as he does with such aplomb. There is not a lot to be said about Black Magic Woman. The two iconic versions by Santana and Fleetwood Mac have stood as classics for years and Vito gives a more than acceptable guitar performance. I Got A Hole In My Shoe has a bayou feel and the closing track, another played by Peter Green but written by Elmore James, Shake Your Moneymaker, epitomises the drumming sound of Mick Fleetwood. It has been kept true to the original and remains a good time boogie.

There is also a four track bonus CD which includes Albatross, a difficult song to better although Vito does make a very good effort to do so. Also included are the Shadows sounding Napuli Nocturne, The Supernatural (on which Vito may even surpass Green) and La Mer D’Amour which is pleasant guitar based Hawaiian style.

There was never any way that this album was not going to link up with the early incarnations of Fleetwood Mac and I’m happy that it does. In fact, Fleetwood dedicates the album to the other original members, Peter Green, John McVie and Jeremy Spencer. British music should never be without the drums of Mick Fleetwood and the songs of Peter Green.

http://www.hypertension-music.de/
http://www.mickfleetwood.com/

David Blue.

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