THE BLUES PROJECT: BLUES PROJECT (1972)
1) Back Door Man; 2) Danville
Dame; 3) Railroad Boy; 4) Rainbow; 5) Easy Lady; 6) Plain And Fancy; 7) Little
Rain; 8) Crazy Girl; 9) I'm Ready.
Little of what applied to Lazarus would not equally well apply to Blues Project, the reunited band's foolishly arrogant attempt at «re-booting»
with a self-titled album. The major change is that the original vocalist Tommy
Flanders is back for this particular show — not a big deal at all, since we now
know that Danny Kalb's vocal powers do not lag far behind Tommy's. In fact,
Flanders makes an immediate false start — this version of ʽBack Door Manʼ is
one of the worst I have ever heard, in terms of lead singing: most of the time,
Tommy alternates between «sloppy drunk» and «whiny schoolboy». No
self-respecting lady would ever let this
guy through her back door, if you know what I mean.
The sad thing is that Kretmar and Kalb have now
managed to keep up a heavy groove, at least on the level of, say, soon-to-come
Bad Company — the guitar / bass dialog on ʽI'm Readyʼ is grim and snappy enough
to attract some interest. Then in come these ridiculous schoolboy vocals, once
again, and the groove goes to hell: the Blues Project were incapable of
properly covering Muddy and Wolf in the early days, and there is no reason why
they should have gained that capacity in their twilight years. And then, when
they do a regular, less criminal-minded, ultra-slow 12-bar blues (Jimmy Reed's
ʽLittle Rainʼ), with «nice» vocals and «clean» sound, you start thinking that,
perhaps, Jimi Hendrix did sacrifice
himself for nought after all. Entertaining people at a late-night diner with
this kind of stuff is boring enough, but actually book studio time for that?
Waste the world's vinyl resources? Forget it.
There is one good original song on this album:
Danny Kalb's ʽCrazy Girlʼ, a darkly romantic «jazz-folk» concoction that has
much in its favour — a quirky «trilly» rhythm pattern for starters, catchy
psycho-jazz guitar leads, and a slightly paranoid atmosphere that matches the
title so well. Had they focused on exploring this jazzy route with its melodic
twist further, instead of stubbornly sticking to limited formulae of the past
that they could never properly sink their teeth in to begin with, there might be a real reason for this reunion.
On the other hand, original material
contributed by Flanders is hardly much stronger than their blues cover material
— he is now favouring anthemic soul balladry, to which his voice is indeed
suited much better than to Chicago blues, but ʽPlain And Fancyʼ is rather plain
than fancy, and ʽRainbowʼ, despite adding some lively sunny funk notes to the
picture, does not have enough energy to turn its optimism into something
infectious. So it makes no sense, either, to try and overrate the band's
songwriting abilities.
The final verdict is pretty much the same as
for Lazarus — a few real awful
performances, a few minor highlights, but most of the time, simply
run-of-the-mill early-1970s blues rock with no «hall-of-fame» ambitions
whatsoever; unless you are a certified enthusiast of the style, just join me in
my thumbs
down and let us get a move on.
For such a bland and nondescript bunch of also-rans, they sure put out a heck of a lot of albums. Record companies sure had a lot more confidence and patience back in the salad days of the industry.
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