BROCK DAVIS-A SONG WAITING TO BE SUNG-REVIEW JOHN EMMS

This is a hell of a good album made with Nashville’s top session players.

Can’t Get Enough of You with the huge wash of Michael B Hicks organic Hammond B3 and the gorgeous title track are superb.

Davis’ vocals are solid and inspiring on the ballads Your One and Only Life and the gorgeous acoustic Second Time Around.

However I could not find any videos of Davis playing live on YouTube and that is very strange.

There are a few regular videos made a few years back but that’s it

If your going to go out with a big sounding album as this is there should be some live stuff up there.

Other standouts include I Don’t Want To Be That Guy and the excellent and Bullets and Blood.

Let’s see some of these songs and Brock live.

JOHN EMMS is a veteran music journalist, Juno Awards Judge, musician with Canada’s Blues Rockers THE SHAFTMEN and former radio and tv host, as well as a Post Media free lance columnist

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RONNIE EARL AND THE BROADCASTERS-MERCY ME-REVIEW BY JOHN EMMS

The Luxury of being Ronnie Earl is not having to rely on a career of being tied to a certain decade or time period.

Mercy Me his latest album sounds timeless because the emotional center is still the sound of his guitar.

The album especially on the instrumentals has a unique power of oneness.

The beauty of the instrumental songs Soul Searching, A Prayer For Tomorrow with piano man Anthony Geraci and Blues For Duke Robillard are really at the heart of Earl and the band.

On these songs the playing and band dynamics are almost spiritual.

The 12-song album features the absolute killer work of Dave Limina on piano and Hammond B3.

Diane Blue is a great vocalist and gets it down and earthy on the chestnut Please Send Me Somebody To Love while Mark Earley, baritone sax and Mario Perrett, tenor sax are featured on the album and blow solos on the Dave Mason cover Only You Know and I Know

Forrest Padgett on drums, and Paul Kochanski on electric and upright bass. guitar keep the groove harnessed while Earl and Limina explore.

The cover of Higher and Higher (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) is in Diane Blue’s R & B wheelhouse and differs from both the widely known Jackie Wilson and Rita Coolidge versions.

Elsewhere Earl covers the John Coltrane classic Alabama possibly one of most emotional jazz songs of all time in his own inspiring take.

This album is quite different than 2020’s Rise Up but will satisfy Earl’s audience in a big way.

Ronnie Earl and The Broadcasters will release Mercy Me, his 14^th album in partnership with Stony Plain Records and his 28^th career album April 15th 2022.

JOHN EMMS is a veteran music journalist, musician, Post Media contributor, Juno Awards Judge and also works with The Toronto Blues Society.

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HOROJO TRIO-SET THE RECORD-OUTSTANDING SOULFUL DEBUT

HOROJO TRIO’S debut album Set The Record is a gorgeous fusion of R & B, Contemporary Blues, and in the end just damn good Rock n’ Roll.

An album by an Ottawa Canada trio that has an International roots feel deep in it’s grooves.

Heck did I mention the 11 track 39 minute album is very addictive?

Okay now you know!

Jeff Rogers the piano playing lead vocalist has a voice somewhere between Boz Scaggs and Robert Cray that can be playful, soulful and in the case of the ballad The Night a very Leon Russell emotional center.

Rogers tears it up on the opening track Man of Steel driven by the groove of drummer Jamie Holmes and the organic guitar sound of JW-Jones.

This is followed by the very radio friendly A Little Goes a Long Way produced by Steve Strongman.

If the above mentioned song is not a hit on any roots radio in North America then something is wrong.

Things get Neville Brothers funky on the Title Track and Hard As I Can has a crisp Cooper Brothers Pop/R & B feel with a great Jones solo and fills.

It should be motioned that veteran Ottawa songwriter Dick Cooper co-wrote 9 out of 11 songs with the band.

Elsewhere, Stay Crazy would not sound out of place on a Los Lobos album and is beautifully sung by Rogers.

Something You Should Know locks in again via the killer stick work of Holmes and the stinging Albert King attack of Jones’ fluid guitar.

The album ends with Real Deal an all out rocker that breaks down into a blues middle before swinging for the fences.

Exciting, distinctive and contemporary this debut can’t miss!

JOHN EMMS is a veteran music journalist/Post Media contributor, musician, and Juno Awards Judge.

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