The Blues Generations...
Gregg Allman – Low Country Blues
Joe Bonamassa – Dust Bowl

Gregg Allman needs no introduction to blues aficionados or any fans of rock music that have a passing interest in southern or countrified rock.

Suffice to say the Nashville born singer, songwriter and keyboard player isn’t just one of the best bluesmen of his generation, he’s also the heart and soul of the Allman Brothers Band, the group he co-formed five decades ago with his brother Duane (who sadly died in 1971).
The ABB continue to this day and are one of the finest blues and country rock jam bands ever to hit a stage or enter a studio.

Gregg Allman is also a survivor.
Married six times, plagued with drug and alcohol problems throughout his career (sober since the mid-‘90s), diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 2007 and underwent a liver transplant in June of 2010.
If that doesn’t entitle you to sing and play the blues, I don’t know what does.

And that’s exactly what he does on Low Country Blues; his first solo album since 1997’s Searching for Simplicity.
There are no surprises here, no changes of musical direction or fancy frills.
But then you can’t teach an old country dawg new tricks. Nor would you want to.

This is simply a great collection of eleven blues or country-blues standards along with one new, original, song. And that new song, ‘Just Another Rider,’ may well be the best of the blues-driven bunch.

Just Another Rider
The album was produced by songwriter and musician T-Bone Burnett who seems to excel with this sort of artist and music (recent production credits include Steve Earle, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and B.B. King).

Allman’s throaty, smokey vocal may be a little thinner these days but it’s perfectly suited to the songs on display, from the blues foot-tapping shuffle of ‘Little by Little’ to the acoustic blues take of ‘Devil Got My Woman’ to the brass accompanied ‘Blind Man.’

Other highlights include Muddy Waters ‘I Can’t Be Satisfied’ and Amos Milburn’s ‘Tears, Tears, Tears.’ The latter is reminiscent of Ray Charles at his piano blues best, and that in part is thanks to some great ivory tinkling by Dr John.
There are few complaints from this listener, the only disappointment being the album ends with an anti-climax with the overly long 'Rolling Stone.'
A shorter, sharper up-tempo finish may have been a better closer.

It may have been fourteen years since Gregg Allman’s last solo album (although there have been two live releases and a studio album by the ABB in that time) but since the turn of the century one of this generations finest exponents of modern blues has been musically prolific...

Joe Bonamassa’s instrument of choice is the guitar and during the last eleven years he's hardly had his hands off his collection of Gibson Les Pauls.
Since 2000 there have been nine Bonamassa studio albums, three official live releases and last year’s ‘supergroup’ project Black Country Communion (with Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian).

Exceptional guitarist that Bonamassa is, he is also a solid songwriter and singer, and interestingly a number of reviewers and music critics have in the past made vocal comparisons to Gregg Allman.

Dust Bowl is the latest instalment of the Bonamassa Kid’s career and it comes close to rivaling the brilliant Sloe Gin, regarded as his best release to date.

After last year’s disappointing Black Rock, many felt he may have peaked with ‘Gin’ and the excellent 2008 follow up The Ballad of John Henry, but poorer offering that Black Rock was it certainly isn’t a bad album.
But Black Rock certainly doesn't match its polished predecessors, or the critically acclaimed Black Country Communion debut (supergroup albums don’t usually live up to the hype or match the individual talents on display, but this one did).

With Dust Bowl however it’s back to blues rock business as usual, mixing traditional blues styles (from boogie shuffles to soaring blues ballads) with more modern riff-heavy blues rock deliveries.

That mix of old and new is not hard to understand when you take into consideration the young Bonamassa was listening to the likes of B.B. King and Robert Johnson while preferring British bands like Humble Pie, Free and Cream.
Intrigued by Muddy Waters and T-Bone Walker, but influenced by the British blues of Paul Kossoff, Peter Green, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Rory Gallagher and many more.  

Rhythm section regulars Anton Fig (drums) and Carmine Rojas (bass) appear on most of Dust Bowl’s twelve tracks, as does organ and keyboard Rick Melick.
Fig’s slow building percussion, emulating the increasing power of train pistons, introduces the moody and bluesy ‘Slow Train,’ which starts the sixty-minute plus ride of rock, blues shuffles, a little honky tonk and bare boned blues.

Dust Bowl
The slow burning title track follows before the honky tonk of John Hiatt’s ‘Tennessee Plates’ kicks in (featuring Hiatt on duet vocal), the first of six covers or non-originals featured (a trademark of Bonamassa albums is to incorporate a number of covers or blues standards).

Two other covers deserve special mention - Vince Gill's ‘Sweet Rowena’ (featuring Gill on guitar and vocals) and the Free classic ‘Heartbreaker’ by Paul Rodgers.
The latter features guest vocals from Glenn Hughes but great song that Heartbreaker is, I would have preferred to have heard Bonamassa doing all the vocals. Or, alternatively, have a Black Country Communion version of 'Heartbreaker' on the second BCC album due later this year.

But that’s pretty much the only complaint I have and any concerns over song choice are more than made up for when you have the likes of ‘No Love on the Street.’
Another moody and atmospheric piece, ‘No Love’ builds to become one of the highlights on Dust Bowl and is similar in construction, pacing and power to the title track from Sloe Gin (arguably the best song Bonamassa has ever put his voice and guitar to).  
Joe Bonamassa had not yet turned 34 when Dust Bowl was released, which means he has thirty years of catching up to do just to reach the age Gregg Allman is now.
Which also means we may have heard only a quarter or so of what Joe Bonamassa has to offer musically as his career continues. 

The previous blues generation is still in fine voice with Gregg Allman’s Low Country Blues, and the rock orientated blues of the new generation is in safe guitar hands with Joe Bonamassa.

More blues power to both.

Ross Muir
April 2011

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