If you were to tell people just how much fun blues music could be, they’d probably give you a strange look. But, especially in the early days of Alligator Records, that was part of their whole mission – namely, to bring attention to deserving artists while showcasing how lively the music could be.<\/p>\n
Live And Burning<\/i>, Son Seals’s third disc for the then-fledgling blues label, is ample proof of this. You can literally hear him smiling through these nine tracks, his laughter in between lyrics becoming infectious. There is a reason that, later in his life, he became a beloved icon to artists like Phish – and this disc is more than ample proof.<\/p>\n
Recorded at Wise Fools Pub in Chicago – which is terribly missed to this day – Seals and crew (including future label-mate A.C Reed on saxophone) tear through nine tracks. By the end of the disc, you are wishing this had been a double (or even triple) album, Seals’s performances are so damned good.<\/p>\n
Up until his final album Lettin’ Go<\/i> (which was recorded on a different label), this was the only place you could hear Seals perform his trademark song “Funky Bitch” – and, honestly, that’s a damned shame. Not because this is a bad rendition, but because I’d have loved to have heard a studio version in his younger, hungrier days.<\/p>\n
But Seals completely tears through these tracks, leaving himself, the band and the listener precious time to rest and catch their breath. Songs like “The Woman I Love,” “Blue Shadows Falling” and “Call My Job” are snapshots of a master blues musician at the peak of his craft. The fluidity of his vocals and guitar playing were rarely finer in his career – and Lord knows Seals had some amazing work during his life.<\/span><\/p>\n This, therefore, is the only complaint I have with Live And Burning<\/i>… it’s too damn short. Perhaps one day, assuming the entire run of shows was recorded, Alligator will release a deluxe edition of this one and showcase several days of Seals and his band tearing up the small stage at Wise Fools Pub. Even that, I fear, might not be enough to satiate the hunger for Seals’s music that this album alone generates.<\/p>\n It’s difficult to say there is one album someone must own from any musician’s discography (though I know I’ve done so many times over the years). If Live And Burning<\/i> were your choice from all of Seals’s offerings, no one could fault that selection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10741],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-46971","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-son-seals","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46971","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=46971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46971"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}