Vera Jonas has had the long-player Game (October 2013) in the planning stages for awhile, it would seem, as this video of the title track reveals from two years prior. None the less, it’s not how quickly you release music, it’s how well you do it and-even better-how you do it differently than everyone else. Vera Jonas, does, in fact, do it differently. Game uses a bluesy melodic hook, combined with strong rhythms and Vera’s dynamic and expressive vocals to paint a musical picture that…
Read MoreEnter Cotton Belly, a band with an eye for blues, rock and integration; A band whose talents include transforming standards into their own image and creating innovative tunes of their own; A band deeply steeped, stoked and smoked in fun. Here on Greatness from the band’s second long-player, This Day (October 2013), Cotton Belly removes the stops and looses the jams. These blues men aren’t from South of the Mason-Dixon line, they make their home in Paris, France. Perhaps that gives their take on blues-rock…
Read MoreI liked UK songwriter, performer, Jon Kenzie on first listen to Sing A Little Higher from the October 2013 released long-player by the same name. Then I listened to Coming Around, the second track from the LP, and was completely blown away. Kenzie performs folk, pop, soul, blues, in what would have to be called a mixer; Sometimes the songs are purely one style and sometimes they combine multiple styles together. It provides for a great sound, and the mostly acoustic…
Read MoreOk, I’m going to start with a very small negative: It seems to me that if you were going to tape a video of a song as you are making it, that there would have been a little bit more editing so that the video would have aligned with the song (lyrics and instruments). That didn’t happen here, on Reels Green’s The Game, from the band’s knock out debut EP, Mister Rice (October 2013). That’s a minor complaint. At least you have…
Read MoreCombining elements of modern rock and rhythm and blues, Hot Bodies In Motion from Seattle, Washington, lay out a tight groove as heard (seen) here on Darkness, from the band’s January 2013 EP, Principle A. While short in track number and length (4 songs clocking in at just under 14 minutes), this a rich and full sounding collection of bluesy, R&B goodness. There is little info to be found about the band, however, either from their web site, or from their…
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