I\u2019d barely gotten started on screening the week\u2019s stack o\u2019 submissions for undiscovered nuggets to send out to the writing staff when I hit this one and whammo.\u00a0 It was literally spinning for less than ten seconds when I said out loud, \u201cThis one\u2019s mine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because Kirk Fletcher is the kind of string-bending magician of a blues guitarist who can literally make the instrument sing.\u00a0 Opener \u201cEl Medio Stomp\u201d had me hooked from the first notes as Fletcher evokes the ghost of Stevie Ray Vaughan over a driving roadhouse boogie beat, powering his way through this propulsive number in high style.<\/p>\n
Ah, but then \u201cFound Love\u201d starts out slow, with banjo decorating the melody, and the whole mood changes.\u00a0 It\u2019s a true country blues, with mandolin, too, and adds Fletcher\u2019s smoky voice to the mix of elements, setting you up for yet another mood shift as \u201cNatural Anthem\u201d comes in at track three with a joyous, celebratory instrumental that soars on the wings of Fletcher\u2019s soulful playing.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
And there\u2019s the lesson this album (like many before it) offers — although the blues is often stereotyped as a downbeat genre, what it really is, is deeply human, capable of delivering any mood you can imagine within the context of a familiar musical framework.\u00a0 Whether the moment calls for hollering party music, sad lonely music, smooth romantic music, or snappy dance music, the blues can deliver all these and more.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Fletcher\u2019s third solo album and gives the relatively young (35 years old) blues guitarist a chance to flex the muscles built up through a musical apprenticeship that includes touring gigs with Lynwood Slim, Janiva Magness, Charlie Musselwhite and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, as well as two solo albums.\u00a0 My Turn<\/i> also benefits from the musical wisdom of veteran sideman Michael Landau, who produced. <\/p>\n
As any practitioner will tell you, the blues is also a genre that has a grand tradition of sassy kiss-off songs.\u00a0 \u201cAin\u2019t No Way\u201d is a strutting blast of horn section and stinging licks to match a stinging lyric, as Mr. Fletcher tells a certain lady where to get off.\u00a0 The title cut is a similarly assertive roadhouse blues number with a complex, slightly menacing funk riff and strong Hammond accents from Luke Miller.\u00a0 An interesting footnote for Larry Carlton fans (for example, yours truly) is that the latter track was co-written by Miller and the great contemporary jazz guitarist\u2019s son Travis Carlton, who also plays a rumbling, steady-on bass guitar on several tracks here.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The Louisiana ghost story \u201cCongo Square\u201d has a definite Robert Cray feel, a smooth, driving soul-pop number with stiletto solos interspersed between lines of the verses.\u00a0 \u201cWay Back Home\u201d shuffles in with a romantic lilt and offers up a gorgeous little jazz riff with a very pretty, smoky sax line running over it, capped by a light-up-the-sky solo from Fletcher.\u00a0 The arrangement really shines here as Fletcher and saxman Paulie Cerra do a little dance over the top of the quiet rhythm section.<\/p>\n
The closing trio offer more musical adventures as \u201cBlues For Antone\u201d adds a bit of B.B. King sustain to the mix and \u201cLet Me Have It All\u201d lays on the funk and a flash of screaming lead guitar.\u00a0 The only off note here is struck by closer \u201cContinent\u2019s End,\u201d a slow-paced, atmospheric rock instrumental.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t have the deep groove or bluesy feel of rest of the album, but is smartly crafted \u2013 at least, until the second act.\u00a0 The latter half of the track features an extended spoken word poem over Fletcher\u2019s riffing, a device that could work but doesn\u2019t come off well here in part because of the way the woman doing the spoken word is recorded, with a dry, distant, mechanical tone that\u2019s off-putting.<\/p>\n
That single misstep aside, My Turn<\/i> is a terrific modern blues album, full of sharp, evocative guitar playing, soulful vocals and finger-snapping rhythms.\u00a0 The best blues music is all about the groove \u2013 once you\u2019ve got it, you can use it to create any mood you want, but it all starts with and builds from the essential groove.\u00a0 And Kirk Fletcher knows that groove like the back of his hand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8561],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41949","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-kirk-fletcher","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41949","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41949"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}