Willie Lomax Blues Revue - Give Me Back My Teeth (1996) FLAC

Willie Lomax Blues Revue - Give Me Back My Teeth (1996) FLAC

Genre: Modern Electric Blues

Tracks:

01. Where I've Been [0:04:19.55]
02. Blues for Peewee [0:05:00.42]
03. Mojo Man [0:03:12.45]
04. Crumblin' Down [0:03:26.63]
05. Lonely With the One You Love [0:05:19.57]
06. Long Day Blues [0:03:49.00]
07. Give Me Back My Teeth [0:03:38.17]
08. Cow Cow Boogie (Moo Moo My Love) [0:04:13.21]
09. Way a Tree Falls [0:02:44.60]
10. Pretty Baby Blues [0:02:55.60]
11. Blues for Jackie Robinson: Medley [0:11:42.00]
12. King Biscuit Blues [0:04:50.57]
13. Crumblin' Down [Alternate Mix] [0:03:26.38]
14. Razorback [0:02:45.07]
15. Keep Your Hands Off of Him [0:02:31.00]
16. Down the Road [0:03:34.00]
17. Hissy Fit [0:03:41.55]


Mr. Lomax's Blues Revue is just that: He's a guitarist who leads a band that backs up a string of singers and featured instrumentalists, the most recognizable of which are James Peterson on vocals and Ronnie Earl on guitar. Another "brand name" making an appearance is Delta semi-legend Sam Carr on drums, who stirs up a racket on much of the "down home" oriented blues material.

Lomax doesn't sing, but he wrote or co-wrote all of the material, which ranges from raucous bar-band boogie blooze to an after-hours T-Bone-esque instrumental to the stripped-down gospel of "Crumblin' Down" with a female vocal trio called the Gospel Mets. His lyrics occasionally veer into the bizarre -- "Lonely With the One You Love" includes the lines "She sprinkles thorns on my eyelids ... and puts Super Glue under my armpits." And just how did he persuade James Peterson to sing "Moo moo my love" in "Cow Cow Boogie"?

The almost 12 minutes of "Blues for Jackie Robinson (Medley)" seems to be a crudely edited montage of otherwise unrelated Ronnie Earl instrumentals linked only by spoken sound bites ("Jackie Robinson ... he had tons and tons of guts") in between each segment.

In "real" life, Lomax is a Florida dentist (to which the disc's title playfully refers) and he seems to have included something from almost everyone he knows down there. This makes for quite a mish-mash of styles and sounds, not to mention levels of accomplishment, but there's something appealing about the quirky, kitchen-sink philosophy behind the production. Even at 71+ minutes it seldom gets boring, although the five instrumentals that make up almost a half hour of the running time do put this to a test.

Further rounding out the "revue" concept is the inclusion of four "Big Boss Bonus Tracks" tacked onto the end from his label's other releases and artists, including Diamond Teeth Mary, Blind Willie James and someone or something called 14 Buffalo, an interesting and strangely enticing (although not entirely successful) attempt to meld James Brown-ish funk, Beastie Boys pseudo-rap vocals and a harp player who's been listening to John Popper.

Musical gearheads will be pleased that Lomax has included his guitar/amp combinations used for recording most of the tracks and even proudly features a portrait of his beloved 1952 Gibson GA-20 amplifier in the booklet.

If you've got all the blues discs you need, but you still have a few bucks left over, this one's worth investigating.