{"id":45759,"date":"2019-11-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/blue-mesa\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:20:09","slug":"blue-mesa","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/blue-mesa\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Mesa"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last (and first) time I encountered Luke Winslow-King, he was picking his way through the steaming wreckage of a painful divorce, turning his authentically lived blues into the outstanding 2016 release I\u2019m Glad Trouble Don\u2019t Last Always<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Blue Mesa<\/i> is Winslow-King\u2019s next chapter, a fresh new album of traditionalist Americana that melds blues, gospel, and New Orleans jazz into a sound that merges past and present. It\u2019s a throwback in the very best sense, real songs made with real instruments, real emotional stakes, and exceptional craft. <\/p>\n

While Winslow-King explores a range of mid-20th century American sounds, the roots of all of his work lie in the blues. Opener \u201cYou Got Mine\u201d leans on that familiar architecture and feel and arrives feeling like an old friend, a song you must have heard before, maybe performed by someone like B.B. King, but it\u2019s an original that\u2019s animated by Winslow-King\u2019s quiet confidence, matching sweet riffing and rich Hammond organ accents with his smoky, understated vocals. <\/p>\n

\u201cLeghorn Women\u201d goes bigger on both guitar and vocals, a swaggering blues-boogie workout that wouldn\u2019t sound out of place musically on a Black Keys album. Winslow-King shows off his vocal prowess again on the title track, a gorgeous little blues ballad whose loping cadence is lit up by a deceptively simple, lilting riff. It\u2019s followed by \u201cBorn To Roam,\u201d a sunny, dusty, hard-strummed, easy-going rocker that carries inevitable echoes of Springsteen\u2019s open-road vision without ever devolving into homage. <\/p>\n

While this set of songs mostly looks forward rather than back, \u201cBetter For Knowing You\u201d reminds you that the experiences chronicled in Winslow-King\u2019s previous album have left an indelible mark. \u201cLove is a cloud \/ It holds a lot of rain \/ But I\u2019m still swimmin\u2019 up through the pain,\u201d he sings, \u201cIf things could be different \/ If I could change time \/ I would fix things together so you were mine \/ \u2018Cause I\u2019m much better for knowing you.\u201d The naked calm of his vocals only underscores the depth of the pain being exposed on this sharp, tasteful ballad.<\/p>\n

The Texas boogie returns in force as \u201cThought I Heard You\u201d rumbles in, twin guitars, Hammond and thumping rhythm section building steadily to a heavy jam that features Winslow-King\u2019s entire crack band\u2014himself on guitar plus Roberto Luti (guitar), Chris Davis (drums), Christian Carpenter (bass) and Mike Lynch (keys).<\/p>\n

From there it\u2019s a quick run through a handful of less consequential numbers\u2014the gospel-tinged but somewhat predictable \u201cBreak Down The Walls,\u201d the playful romp \u201cChicken Dinner\u201d with its sweet Nawlins horn section, and the airy mid-tempo number \u201cAfter The Rain.\u201d All are well-executed, but none has the weight and impact of what comes before and after. Closer \u201cFarewell Blues\u201d is the song Winslow-King wrote after his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer, a country-blues rambler whose deceptively sunny melody counterpoints a lyric tinged with melancholy. Nominally the lament of a drifter who\u2019s always saying goodbye to lovers, its refrain \u201cI\u2019m gonna miss you when you go \/ I\u2019m gonna miss you when you go away\u201d sticks with you long past the track\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

For the most part the lyrics on Blue Mesa<\/i> lack the visceral bite of those on I\u2019m Glad Trouble Don\u2019t Last Always<\/i>, but they\u2019re consistently thoughtful and observant; Winslow-King approaches these songs with the care and attention to detail of a master craftsman. Still, what brings them to life is their authenticity and heart. Making music that feels both vintage and modern, of a moment and genuinely timeless, is quite a feat, and Winslow-King pulls it off again and again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9891],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45759","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-luke-winslow-king","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45759","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=45759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45759"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}