Robben Ford and the Blue Line: Handful Of Blues

No, it’s not out of print, nor is “Handful Of Blues” all that hard to find. But when one of your favorite CDs finally succumbs to age and years of mishandling, it’s a lovely surprise to find a “new old” copy staring back at you in the used rack. This was just the case recently, when no amount of cleaning or buffing would allow the last three tracks of this stunning modern blues release (from 1995) to play in their entirety.

Ford’s style is a crafty amalgamation of fiery, stinging blues guitar in the Bloomfield vein and a jazzy harmonic sophistication. There are potent smatterings of rock and soul to be found in that mix as well. Somehow, though, Ford is able to never lean to far in any direction — he stays centered in the blues, but is so crafty at sneaking some very forward thinking “un-blues” lines into his phrases that you never get the feeling he’s a jazzbo in disguise. The opening track, “Rugged Road,” prominently displays this trait — it’s an up-tempo burner that features his burnished but biting tone in a series of amazing solos. Vocally, Ford often divides listeners into the “like it/leave it camps,” and admittedly, a gravelly belter he’s not. But the guy’s got a great voice anyway, smooth and controlled.

The other thing (as if there were merely a few) that separates the guitarist from the blues guitar pack is his neck deep sense of groove — the guy’s a machine. Combined with a rhythm section consisting of remarkable players like bassist Roscoe Beck and drummer Tom Brechtlein, it makes for not only a lesson in stunning modern blues soloing, but also how to make a power trio truly rock. Their cover of the classic “Chevrolet” is old sock funky and deep, deep blue. The instrumental “The Miller’s Son” is a smoking reworking of Clapton’s “Steppin’ Out” framework, and he masterfully reads “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood” into a smoky blues/pop tune.

One more thing, and don’t get wrong for saying this, but Robben Ford is one of the few modern blues guitarists that sound NOTHING like the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan. As fine as the Bonamassa’s and Duarte’s out there are, they’re still treading on all too familiar ground. Ford, in the best way, is a different animal altogether.

Sugar: Copper Blue

If we were to reset the “wayback machine” to 1992, and went looking for some crunchy, literate — oh, how I hate this term — ‘post punk’ pop, Bob Mould’s Copper Blue would be an excellent find. From the ashes of Husker Du, Mould decided to slow things down and push the melodies to the forefront, but in doing so kept the guitars roaring and the tunes damn smart. And sometimes disturbing — the grave and darkly sarcastic pixies-esque “Good Idea” will have you tapping your foot and staring at the lyric book in sheer horror.

Being a sucker for smartly crafted, hooky tunes and great guitar tones, it was Sugar’s later release, File Under Easy Listening that initially hipped me to Mould’s overall brilliance as a musician and songwriter. Almost hate to say it, but to my ears Copper Blue is an even better album, though the earliest.

Maybe its Mould’s knack for creating these sunny sounding, chiming songs and sticking disarmingly tortured lyrics beneath the layers of harmony that makes this music stand up so well seventeen years later. Though you can hear differences in the mastering qualities, it’s hard to say that much of this sounds dated at all- save for the synthesizer patch in “Hoover Dam” possibly. But songs like “The Act We Act” and “Changes” manage to deal with the intricacies and difficulties of relationships and loss while somehow making you feel as if you’re speeding down the interstate on a warm day with the windows down. And those of you of the correct music consumption age back in ’92 surely recall the band’s one radio and MTV hit, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind.” Jangly, hummable and sad as can be. Great stuff.

On a completely different note, I recently picked up the book Jazz Country by Nat Hentoff and found it a remarkably enjoyable, if short, reading experience. Originally published in 1965, it chronicles the story of a talented young trumpet player named Tom Curtis and his attempts to enter the world of jazz. The story dates itself, often beats you over the head with its message, but it still manages to be a wonderful and insightful tale written by someone that understood the culture and mindset of jazz musicians. Tom wants to play jazz, but finds himself initially shut out by the players he admires because of racial tensions at the time. As he’s trying to wrap his mind around the whole thing, get his chops to the point they need to be, decide whether to go to college or play in a band, the kid manages to figure out who he really is and meet some amazing people along the way. Yes, predictable. But you should still read it if you like jazz and have a few hours to kill. It’s well worth the effort.

(Chris Cooper can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

By Chris Cooper

Truth be told, I’m not exactly the biggest fan of — here’s the old fogey coming out — “electronic” music. I hear bleeps and bloops, repetitive motifs that are often harmonically half baked and build and build into mostly nothing, and as far as lyrical content is concerned- what lyrical content? Now, my point of reference is a little limited, because if you genuinely dislike something, you’re really not going to pursue much of it. I hate brussel sprouts, had a bad experience as a child with them, and thus never ate them again. So I’m not the prime candidate to ask for advice on brussels sprouts. Or electronic music.

That being said, musician/photographer/writer Michael O’Shea’s Kinjac project hasn’t left my CD player since he dropped off an advance copy. 7 Years Bad Luck is a rare combo of ultra tweaked samples, live drums and bass, distorted vocals and sometimes hyper politically charged intent that initially left me scratching my head before fumbling for the “play” button again... and again. It’s not often that a disc comes along (especially one from a genre of music I typically avoid) that leaves me as dumbfounded as this one has. Of course to anyone more familiar with the style than I, the influences and points of reference are most likely obvious. But to my “guitar/bass/drum/keys/vocal” oriented ears, this stuff sounds intriguingly and almost uncomfortably different.

“The Fall” builds for three minutes before the vocals kick in. It’s that whole “going somewhere” thing again — and go somewhere it does. Structurally, it’s a pretty interesting trick; save the verse for the last minute of the song. Thematically, this is fairly dark stuff as well. Many tunes seem like studies on finding hope among an immense lack thereof, with verses and choruses tangled upon themselves until really, they’re neither. Repetition is used for impact, melodic ideas are shifted and twisted each time they come around again — on the one hand, this is pretty confusing stuff for the “pop” trained ears. On the other, that’s likely why it works as well as it does.

And in the “creepy aural nightmares” corner, we have a disorienting chromatic accordion melody fighting with fuzzed out drum’n’bass on the appropriately titled “Terror.” The sequencing of the tracks on 7 Years Bad Luck is crafty as well, where one song starts and another stops is often a mystery; long instrumental sections give way to sudden bursts of noise, then part of a verse, then everything goes haywire again. “I Walk” operates on such a principle- you think you know what’s happening for minute or so, then you’re wondering if it’s still the same song. A cut that’s sure to stand out is O’Shea’s sampling of Dennis Kucinich’s fierce “Wake Up America” speech into the album’s closing track, which is preceded by an ominous instrumental track cleverly entitled “Optimism.”

Let’s make it clear that Michael O’Shea is this whole project. Every knob that was turned, string plucked (or beaten into submission), microphone placed, vocal delivered; every bit of recording and mastering was done in a modest home studio by O’Shea. And the quality of production made one of the rarest of occurrences happen: while spinning 7 Years Bad Luck at work, a customer stopped in the middle of the store, stared at the speakers, and asked me with widened eyes “What are we listening to?” This wasn’t a new major label release. This is, frankly, pretty challenging stuff. By a local musician. The look on that customer’s face something akin to having been hit by a truck, and really liked it.

If this is any indication of what’s to come on the local music scene for the New Year, consider me inspired. Release date for 7 Years Bad Luck is Jan. 20 — yes folks, Inauguration Day. I’d strongly recommend seeking this one out.

(Chris Cooper can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

You start a band. The band writes material, rehearses, and plays some shows. What’s the next step? Merchandising? A world tour? Possibly a big fat record deal and huge cash advance from the label? Wait a minute; the record industry is currently dying a slow and painful death, so ... maybe not.

By Chris Cooper

In guitar circles, certain names are spoken in hushed, respectful tones. Players like Mike Stern, Allan Holdsworth and Scott Henderson — among others, of course — represent the best of the best in regards to the modern jazz/rock genre. These musicians absorbed the nuances of the jazz language and married these ideas to rock’s grittiness and attitude. The result is music that, when it’s not leaping over the head of most listeners, can at one moment inspire and the next make you want to take that six-string plank you noodle around on occasionally out back and burn it out of sheer intimidation.

By Chris Cooper

Last summer I wrote an article titled “I Played In A Classic Rock Cover Band And Lived To Tell About It.” It was a semi-humorous account of some friends getting together under the moniker of Alpine Taxi, banging out a batch of tunes in rehearsal, and performing them live at Mill & Main and Guadalupe Café. It was fun and sloppy, and noisy and exhilarating and ... it was a lot of things, some of which weren’t apparent to me until now.

By Chris Cooper

Ah, the joy of finding good stuff in the “undeservedly discarded disc” section of any music store. Here a few recent scores: pop melodrama from Bleu and a superb album from the most underappreciated — and one of the best, in my opinion — bands in the country.

The term “contemporary bluegrass” is open to a ridiculous amount of interpretation. For some it signifies anything that strays even a little beyond the template set by Ralph Stanley, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs — which means that damn near everything we hear nowadays that falls under the heading of bluegrass is “contemporary.”

By Michael Beadle

Watch out Broadway. Get Carnegie Hall ready.

Jim Lauderdale: The Bluegrass Diaries

If you recognize the name, little more needs to be said. Long one of the first-call songwriters in Nashville, Jim Lauderdale is probably the guy responsible for penning some of your favorite country tunes.

By Chris Cooper

A few years ago there was this gangly guy with a mop of shaggy blonde hair sitting on a bench reading Beneath The Wheel by Herman Hesse. I recognized the book because a friend of mine had recently acquired a copy, and I’d made a half-hearted attempt to work my way through it.