Rick Berthod / Dom Martin / Jonah Tolchin

The fundamental appeal of the blues lies largely in its simplicity of form and humor of expression. The elasticity of its format carries intrinsic drama, the suspense resolved within each verse, with a cumulative effect carrying over to the end of the given performance. It is a rare creature indeed that can muster the patience and discipline necessary to touch and hold the essence of the blues, thus the preponderance of posers who adopt the superficials, but ultimately never grasp the truth of the music. Perhaps because those verities that real bluesmen and women address are simply not palatable for most of us, the audience for the genre, while staunch, has never become an integral component of the mainstream and has instead become relegated to the periphery, global communities devoted to the idiom (though not always its most astute practitioners). Hyperbole nevertheless abounds, often obscuring the real thing(s) in favor of the cosmetic, but ultimately rendering what is genuine that much more of an artistic north star.

Rick Berthod
Tribute To Peter Green: Fleetwood Mac Years
Self Produced
2022

Rick Berthod is so earnest in his intent to honor the late Peter Green, co-founder of Fleetwood Mac, that a vintage photo of the latter appears on the front cover of the album. Co-produced by Berthod with Stoney Curtis (who also recorded mixed and mastered the ten tracks and forty-six minutes), this clutch of Green originals adheres to his reverence for the idiom as well as the abandon of his own musicianship. The clarity of sound then is a reflection of the vision of a man courageous enough to take Eric Clapton's place in John Mayall's Bluesbreakers upon the departure of Slowhand back in 1966. There is as much poise in renditions of familiar selections like "Oh Well" and "Black Magic Woman"—famously covered by Santana on Abraxas (Columbia, 1970)—as in lesser-known tunes such as "Jumping at Shadows." And without ever overshadowing accompanists like keyboardist Billy Truitt, the Nevada-based Berthod plays —and to his great credit also sings—with an unaffected, pithy passion worth admiration and recognition in any context, not just this righteous and heartfelt endeavor.

Dom Martin
Buried In The Hail
Forty Below Records
2023

It's hard not to find the curiosity piqued by an album title that alludes to Bob Dylan. But Dom Martin's third album offers more rewards than just passing reference to the Bard's work via "Shelter From The Storm" from Blood On The Tracks (Columbia Records, 1975). Martin's facility with both acoustic and electric instruments, as well as his instinctual songwriting skills, earmark him as more than just a novice craftsman; he seems to be naturally inclined to understate, at least based on the quiet intro to this album, an instrumental called "Hello In There." And while this album is inordinately slow to pick up the pace over the course of its eleven cuts, at least this plucky musician wastes no time: "Belfast Blues" is electrifying, literally and figuratively, while his charged rendition of blues icon Willie Dixon's "Crazy" is simultaneously a link to the fittingly-titled original "Unhinged" (transcending trite contemporary cultural connotations) and the barely restrained tenor of that aforementioned ode to the author's hometown.

Jonah Tolchin
Dockside
Clover Music Group
2023

The presence of guitarist Luther Dickinson mitigates Jonah Tolchin's strain for authenticity on Dockside and in more than just those two instances where the co-founder of the North Mississippi Allstars plays: he also co-produced the album. The overly precious tone of Tolchin's Fires For The Cold (Yep Roc, 2019) is thus only fleeting here—most conspicuous during "Can't Close My Eyes—so it's only natural the album begins with a fluent interpretation of Little Walter's "Blues With A Feeling." "Searching For My Soul," like "Nothing's Gonna Take My Blues Away," insinuates via crisp electric piano from Chris Joyner (Ben Harper), both of which tracks belie a certain predictable element in play too often evident on cuts such as "Can't Close My Eyes. But even as Jonah Tolchin and company play and sing too carefully there, the ensemble radiates an unmitigated joy during "Endless Highway," all the way from the cheery harp to the chunky drumming of Terrence Higgins (Warren Haynes). It's an altogether astute piece of pacing at the midpoint of the twelve tracks,

Tracks and Personnel

Tribute To Peter Green

Personnel: Rick Berthod: guitar, vocals; Billy Truitt: Hammond organ; piano; Junior Brantley: piano; organ; Stoney Curtis: guitar; Chris Tofield: guitar; Mike Varney: guitar; John Zito: slide guitar; Jason Walker: guitar; Ronee Mac: bass, vocals; Brett Barnes: drums, percussion, vibes.

Tracks: If You Be My Baby; Black Magic Woman; Jumping at Shadows; Need Your Love So Bad; Oh Well; Rattlesnake Shake; Albatross; Stop Messing Around; Driftin'; Loved Another Woman.

Buried In The Hail

Tracks: Hello In There; Daylight I will Find; Government; Belfast Blues; Crazy; Unhinged; The Fall; Howlin'; Buried In The Hail; Lefty 2 Guns; Laid to Rest.

Personnel: Dom Martin: vocals, guitar; Ben Graham: bass guitar, double bass; Jonny McIlroy: drums.

Dockside

Tracks: Blues With A Feeling; Searching For My Soul; Nothing's Gonna Take My Blues Away; Save Me (From Myself); Can't Close My Eyes; Endless Highway; Trust Someone; too Far Down; Suffering Well; Mama Don't Worry; Vermillion River; Lucille.

Personnel: Jonah Tolchin: vocals, lead guitar, harmonica: Luther Dickinson: rhythm guitar, lead guitar, clave; Chris Joyner: keyboards; Carey Frank: keyboards; Chavonne Stewart: lead vocals, background vocals; Marley Munroe: background vocals; Nic Coolidge: bass, rhythm guitar; Terence Higgins: drums.