Search - The Soul Of John Black :: The Good Girl Blues

A different take on blues

Nobody important | 08/17/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Yes, Fishbone's John Bigham decided to make a blues record. His previous album as "The Soul of John Black" was more of a straight-forward soul album with his always tasteful guitar work. This one is different. Of course, the idea of mixing funk and blues is nothing new. Anybody who remembers the first few Funkadelic albums knows that funk started out much closer to the blues anyway. Really, Bigham is just trying to remind the blues of one of its offspring. The album is generally quite successful, and as one would expect from the Fishbone guitarists, Bigham always has a few surprises. What is most interesting here is his use of an acoustic guitar in a setting in which one would expect electric. I am reminded a bit of some of Chris Thomas King's efforts in a similar vein, but Bigham brings more straight funk into the mix, whereas CTK tried, with varying degrees of success, to incorporate hip hop. I never liked hip hop, but I love funk, so this album works for me more than CTKs, but anyone with adventerous taste in blues should check this one out. As a warning to Fishbone fans, though, if you are expected the funk/ska/punk/rock of Angelo Moore and company, this isn't it. This is a blues album with heavy strains of funk.



Fans of this one should also check out Mofro (particularly, the Lochloosa album), Ash Grunwald's "Give Signs", Eric Lindell, Scrapomatic, the John Butler Trio, John Mooney, and maybe Snooks Eaglin for some old-school New Orleans funk-blues."