April 2003-CD Reviews

Eric Moore: Music Cafe-Clean Plate Music
Recorded & Mixed @ Duke's Mood Room, Pawtucket , RI

Annieville Blues told me in an interview that for a piano player, "the boogie woogie player's left hand has gotta roll, bop, walk, & talk." On Music Cafe (MC), Eric Moore and bandmates do a lot of all that...Eric is on the keyboard & authoring all songs. He is unusually articulate and sarcastic. The disc is only slightly more reserved than his three previous food-filled releases. For my tastes, MC is equally enjoyable, perhaps even more so in a number of ways. Duke Robillard is on guitars & background vocals, Sax Gordon & Doug James are the Mood Room's horn section-and the two certainly know how to make a room full. The horns are amply dispersed throughout and lend rich melodic texture to Moore's thickly sliced vocals on Baritone sax. M. Ballou's acoustic bass is deliciously thick and inviting. Bravo for Eric's band on MC. The songwritting, in Moore's distinct rolling, humorous style, is in line with his other "fun time", danceable releases. "I Wish I Was Left Handed", is a rhyming tune about a guy with 2 left hands. The play on words whilst the piano player rolls on is so clever, one begins laughing while Moore rolls down the bass line. I also appreciate the politically incorrectness of songs like "Big Ugly Fella" - "he's got no style/Poor as dirt/Probably got married in a tee shirt/But girl you ain't been rocked and rolled/By a big ugly fella with a heart of gold." If only Eric were a stand-up comedian...hmmm. "Clean Clean Clean" starts like an old Elmore James tune: Moore humor about seemingly demeaning work turns a story into a fun-filled excuse to clean ones own porcelain! There is also a seriously fun side to several songs. You could call them politically nuanced sung parables of a sort..."Hamburger Time" is one: "Italy's got pizza/China's got rice...but I'm an American/Can I have a hamburger, please?" There's also "Don't Have To Drink It Here": If you don't treat me fair/I'm going to take my business elsewhere/I've got to drink beer/But I don't have to drink it here." All 15 cuts are fun, humorous and seductively danceable. Pop it in the CD player and put your dancin' shoes on. Play it loud!
- Clancy Dunigan


George Rezendes: Long Way From Home

Anyone who's heard this Port Townsend acoustic guitar wizard at the Centrum Blues Festival will appreciate this fine, homemade collection of blues, rags, and folk tunes. As the Rev. Gary Davis said about Blind Blake, Rezendes has a "sporting right hand." On the Merle Travis tune "Sixteen Tons", he uses an unusual open-C tuning, octave runs and a descending bass line, and a rock-solid alternating thumb to generate unbearable tension on the best version of this venerable Travis tune I've ever heard. Rezendes works the same magic with the same tuning and hard-charging thumb on the title tune: "Poor Boy" 'a long way from home.' His version of Woody Guthrie's "Pastures of Plenty" seems to come disembodied and haunted-directly out of the spirit world. He plays a charming version of Billy Hill's "The Story of Love", and he does equal justice to other familiar songs by Blind Blake ("Police Dog Blues", "West Coast Blues", and "Hey Hey Daddy"), Fats Waller ("Viper"), Johnny Cash ("Hey Porter"), and A. Nonymous ("Corrina" and "Darlin' Corey"). If you're into powerful, syncopated finger-picking that'll take charge of your autonomous nervous system, this is a must-have CD. One dollar from each CD goes to the Music Maker's Relief Fund. - Mark Hoffman

© 2003