Black to Blues, Vol. 2

Album review

If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Black Stone Cherry adopted this very principle when they started making music again in 2017 with their EP Black to Blues. Here, we are given another welcome dose of covers that stem from their blues, soul and rhythm’n’blues influences. We sure have no reason to complain when the Kentucky group master their subject so well that some tracks seem to have been written precisely for them. From the opening Big Legged Woman by Freddie King, it is obvious that this groove is to be one of the recurring themes throughout the album. This 1972 track is packed with feeling strengthened by the guest Yates McKendree’s piano. But this is nothing compared to Robert Johnson’s desperate Me and The Devil Blues which is made incredibly danceable with McKendree again on the piano. Otis Rush’s All Your Love (I Miss Loving) was a heavy influence on the late Peter Green’s Black Magic Woman, but the version popularized by Santana is closer to it than that of Fleetwood Mac. It’s interesting consider how similar these tracks are. Howlin Wolf’s Down in The Bottom is a necessary reminder that Black Stone Cherry was originally a hard rock band: this interpretation immediately brings New-York band Raging Slab to mind as it treads the line between boogie and hard rock with its wild Hammond organs. Elmore James’ Early One Morning undergoes a hell of a makeover and Chris Robertson’s singing sounds strikingly like Eddie Veddie from Pearl Jam even though the music style is completely different. Their version of Death Letter Blues by Son House is similarly quirky as the song’s minimalism is done away with in favour of some typically American hard rock teeming with emotion. Six tracks that span 25 minutes: it’s short but is enough to provide you with your daily fix of hard rock. The unmistakable pleasure that Black Stone Cherry had in making these interpretations is there for all to see. A real success! © Charlélie Arnaud/Qobuz