Membership in the mid-1980s version of Supertramp, then attempting to carry on without Roger Hodgson, had its privileges for Carl Verheyen. Hired to go on tour with the proggy pop-rock leviathan in support of the
Brother Where Are You Bound LP, the guitar savant had to solo live with such grandeur and technical ability on the 1985 album’s title track that audiences would forget the lengthy, winding passages David Gilmour deftly negotiated for the original recording.
A daunting assignment, to be sure, but for Verheyen, long a Gilmour admirer, it was the chance of a lifetime. He repays the Pink Floyd maestro’s inspiration with the soulful swells and complex melodic sweep of a soaring “Spiral Glide,” the stunning centerpiece of the genre-hopping
Money’s tight for the mighty Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band on Dance Songs for Hard Times, the lively new album of galvanizing electric blues from the burly, fingerstyle guitar dynamo and friends. Informed by family health scares, pandemic depression and COVID-related financial calamity, the red-hot trio’s energetic romp sympathizes with the impoverished and the destitute, as the strutting, dogged insistence of the contagious haymaker “Ways and Means” dreams big but laments not having a penny to its name, while the gritty, back-alley ballad “Dirty Hustlin’” accepts the cold reality of going back to earning cash by any means necessary. The wolves are at the door with eviction notices in their mouths.
Radar is just now picking up Birmingham, Alabama’s The Blips, whose tuneful brand of bash and pop executes a –perfectly imperfect landing on their raucous debut LP. Clocking in at just under 32 minutes, this puddle jumper of a record comes in hot with reckless punk abandon and wildly infectious rock ‘n roll energy, flying by the seat of its pants all the way.
At the controls is guitarist and songwriter Will Stewart, who recruited an interchangeable crew of Birmingham, Alabama hotshots in Wes McDonald, Eric Wallace, Taylor Hollingsworth, and Chris McCauley for a friendly collaboration that finished work in early 2020, just before the pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt. Having all led bands or recorded under different aliases or their own names, they checked their egos at the door, playfully swapping instruments, switching out singers at will and engaging in a variety of gang vocal sighs and shouts, all while heaving big, strong hooks to-and-fro, performing with ex
Home is where the pocket is for legendary drummer Steve Gadd, and he rarely leaves it during the cool, groove-oriented live outing
At Blue Note Tokyo, a seductive set of soft, neon-lit jazz-fusion recorded there on Dec. 18, 2019. Favoring natural feel over fussy complexity, Gadd takes a backseat on this occasion, venturing out to solo just once with a dizzying, euphoric eruption during the piano rolling, Latin-inspired gyrations of “One Point Five.” The chops are still there.
Responsible for laying down the irresistibly catchy beats of Paul Simon’s “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” with his rhythmic complexity having also propelled groundbreaking records by Al Di Meola and Chick Corea, among others, Gadd has nothing left to prove.
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