Doug MacLeod's 20th studio album and his 1st for Reference Recordings.

Doug MacLeod – There’s  A Time (Reference Recordings).

 

There’s A Time is Doug MacLeod’s debut album for Reference Recordings but his 30 year career span has  seen a further 19 studio albums. He opens with Rosa Lee, an acoustic Delta Blues with a shuffling drumbeat. MacLeod is a fine exponent of slide guitar and vocally strong. Other Delta Blues included are the gentle East Carolina Woman with wailing vocal and a certain fluidity about his playing, the mournful Ghost where his voice goes from a whisper to a shout in one line, the slick and sure Black Nights and the soothing tones of A Ticket Out. Country Blues are represented in the shape of the wonderfully titled My Inlaws Are Outlaws with wonderful guitar work and the 12 string driven The Up Song, which is rather mournful despite the title. Doug also ventures into Chicago Blues with I’ll Be Walking On which has a feel of Worried Life Blues to it and the contemporary The Entitled Few. However, Doug MacLeod is a storyteller and he excels on the talking Blues of The Night Of The Devil’s Road which is full of suspense and accentuated by the rhythmic beating on his guitar, the well worked religious debate of Dubb’s Talking Religious Blues and the aforementioned The Entitled Few. The only weak track on the album is the gentle Blues of St Elmo’s Room And Pool but that’s only because the rest of the album is of such a high standard. What comes through on this album, as it always does, is that Doug MacLeod is a consummate storyteller, a powerful vocalist and a superb slide guitarist.

www.referencerecordings.com

David Blue.