I have difficulty saying anything negative about Koko
\nTaylor.<\/p>\n
It’s not that I am afraid to; it’s just that it feels like
\nanything bad I may say about her would not only be a slap in the
\nface to the genre of blues, but would almost be like taking a
\nsledgehammer to the foundations of Chicago itself.<\/p>\n
But I’ve spent the better part of a day going over Taylor’s
\nlatest release
\nRoyal Blue<\/i>, and as much as I hate to say it, I’m going to
\nhave to: this is not Taylor’s best work. Even the plethora of guest
\nmusicians who join in can’t pull this album out of mediocrity.<\/p>\n
Oh, sure, things get off to a strong start with tracks like
\n“Save Your Breath,” a song which harkens back to Taylor’s earlier
\ndays of belting out such songs as “Wang Dang Doodle” and “Come To
\nMama”. But sadly, moments such as this one are few and far between
\non
\nRoyal Blue<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Mistake numbers one and two: Taylor chooses to cover Melissa
\nEtheridge’s “Bring Me Some Water,” and has guitar whiz-kid Kenny
\nWayne Shepherd sit in. Unfortunately, Taylor doesn’t keep the same
\nbasic musical structure that Etheridge had in the song, and
\nliterally ruins it from its core. And as much as I think Shepherd
\nis the second coming of Stevie Ray Vaughan, his style of playing
\njust does not fit with Taylor’s Chicago-style blues. You wouldn’t
\nput a fiddle player on a Pantera album, would you? (I just don’t
\nknow what went wrong here; Taylor pulled off a great cover of a Ted
\nNugent song a few years back.)<\/p>\n
Mistake number three: duetting with fellow blues legend B.B.
\nKing on “Blues Hotel”. I love King’s work as much as the next blues
\nafficionnado, but the material really has to be stellar for a
\npairing like this to work, and the song itself is lacking. There
\nalso isn’t a lot of chemistry between Taylor and King – that’s kind
\nof a surprise.<\/p>\n
The best “superstar” pairing, surprisingly, comes with dobro
\nguitarist Keb’ Mo’; the stripped-down track “The Man Next Door” is
\nincredibly powerful, capturing the sheer force of Taylor’s vocals
\nwith the bare accompaniment of guitar and vocals from Keb’ Mo’. It
\nalmost makes me wish that Taylor would do an album of songs in this
\nvein, pairing up possibly with labelmates Corey Harris or John
\nJackson.<\/p>\n
The bulk of
\nRoyal Blue<\/i> keeps the listener on a teeter-totter between
\nabove-average and below-average material. For every “Ernestine” or
\n“Keep Your Mouth Shut And Your Eyes Open,” there is a “But On The
\nOther Hand” or “Don’t Let Me Catch You With Your Drawers Down”. I
\ndon’t always expect A-list material, but I don’t like being made
\npart of a musical ping-pong match.<\/p>\n
Taylor is a much more capable artist than the material on
\nRoyal Blue<\/i> dares to suggest. And while this album is a
\ndisappointment in the big picture, it does offer glimpses into some
\npotentially exciting musical avenues that Taylor may wish to
\ninvestigate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6376],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-36698","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-koko-taylor","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36698"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36698"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}