Popa Chubby: Live at G. Bluey's Juke Joint NYC

When we last heard from Popa Chubby, he was on his own, producing, recording and mixing at Chubbyland, his upstate New York music compound, making the most of his time in the lock-downs of the COVID pandemic on Emotional Gangster (Dixie Frog Records, 2022). Now the man born Ted Horowitz is in his preferred element, back out on the road, captured in the autumn of 2022 in all his redoubtable glory within the modern blues environs of G Bluey's Juke Joint in Long Island City, New York,.

The veteran blues-rocker produced and mixed this Gulf Coast Records label debut, a double-CD that constitutes something of a reunion for the man. He collaborates here with his all-star Beast Band on a nineteen song program juxtaposing a borderline mediocre oddity like Neil Young's "Motorcycle Mama" with more carefully-wrought personal expressions such as "Another Ten Years Gone."

Just as the latter arrangement morphs from chunky chording to fleet double-time instrumental improvisation, so does the album as a whole posit often startling changes of pace. For instance, the near fourteen-minute original "Grown Man Crying Blues"—one of the few straight genre pieces here—resides right next to an almost nine minute excursion into and through Harold Arlen's "Over The Rainbow" (in a distinctly more raucous take than the late great Jeff Beck's).

All this comes hot on the heels of Popa Chubby immersed in an anguished homage to Jimi Hendrix in the form of "Hey Joe." The New York City-based guitar hero nevertheless transcends merely offering dutiful homage to the late blues-rock icon, instead turning his interpretation of the Billy Roberts' tune into an exposition of his own personalized guitar technique: he is inordinately judicious in his use of effects and that's all to the good (not to mention to his great credit given the object of his tribute).

Likewise, this performance before a select intimate audience is not an exercise in blustering self-indulgence. No question "Dirty Lie," to name just one cut, is an emotional exorcism of sorts. But even as the bandleader cauterizes his psychic wounds with his instrument, the rhythm section of bassist Michael Merritt and drummer Stefano Guidici percolates with great restraint, while keyboardist Mike Dimeo picks and chooses the spots to fill (a laudable feat he also accomplishes with artful delicacy on "69 Dollars").

Only a musician of uncommon insight, matching Chubby's technical expertise, could render such a tough rendition of "Godfather Theme (Speak Softly Love)," and then turn around to proffer a soul-searching take on Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." And as prosaic as is the penultimate cut "Nobody Wants You When You're Down and Out" (a nod to Eric Clapton and Duane Allman on Derek & the Dominos' Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (Atco, 1970)), Popa betrays no ennui: as is generally the case throughout this two-plus hours, his intensely energetic engagement remains unwavering.

As a further contrast to the proliferation of modern blues posers, Popa Chubby displays no self-consciousness whatsoever. On the contrary, he adopts a natural swagger that, on "It's a Might Hard Road" and "I Don't Want Nobody," reinforces the true-to-life nature of such tunes. Even an imaginative and courageous coupling of The Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil' with "Chubby's Story" works as a self-referential effort.

At the same time, the bandleader/guitarist's staccato-ridden, cliche-free fretboard fingering on "I Can't See The Light Of Day," reaffirms the visceral abandon in the musicianship. Supremely self-motivated and iconoclastic an artist that he is, Popa Chubby might well have used "A Self-Portrait" as the subtitle of Live at G. Bluey's Juke Joint NYC.