Blues With A Feeling: Luther Dickinson & JD Simo; Charlie Hunter & Jubu Smith; Mick Fleetwood & Jake Shimabukuro

The blues is more about feel than form, but even so, the genre has its readily-recognizable structures. The A-A-B lyric format, shuffles in varying tempos and the 12-bar configuration are all stock-in-trade frameworks. Still, the essential simplicity of the blues lends itself to innumerable variations and so it is with these contemporary collaborative works of Luther Dickinson and JD Simo, Charlie Hunter and Jubu Smith, Mick Fleetwood and Jake Shimabukuro. Each alliance conjures its own distinctive ingenuity, fleshed out with simpatico players in addition to the principals, all of which action blends into mixes as immediately infectious as they will no doubt prove to be durable. As novel as are these alliances, the chemistry is combustible, carefully channeled for maximum impact in the short run and long.

Luther Dickinson
Do The Rump!
Forty Below Records
2024

Within the forty-one minutes plus of Do The Rump!, Luther Dickinson reaffirms his affinity for complementary collaborations. Not only that, but in his bonding with guitarist/vocalist/bassist JD Simo, the co-founder of North Mississippi Allstars depicts how wide-ranging his projects outside that band can be: the distinctly garage rocking ethos in play here bears only scant resemblance to his formal work with Colin Linden Amour (Stony Plain, 2019) or the ethereal effort by The Sisters of the Strawberry Moon, Solstice (New West, 2019) (released almost coincidentally as if to reaffirm the Dickinson's eclectic credibility). "Street People"'s guitars sound so distorted it suggests the recording is defective, at least until the subliminal rhythm emerges. Meanwhile, J.J. Cale's "Right Down There" leads faultlessly into Junior Kimbrough's "Lonesome Road," the two in close alignment with drummer Adam Abrashoff, skirting the perimeter of blues before squarely nailing it on John Lee Hooker's "Serve Me Right To Suffer." It's no surprise this endeavor was all recorded at a place called 'House of Grease' (engineered by Simo who mixed with co-producer Dickinson): the spontaneity that suffuses this music—not to mention the rudimentary design of its cover graphics—suggests it hardly took much longer to complete engineering and packaging for the release than it took to play it in the first place. However, the resulting sense of abiding spontaneity is one of its prime virtues.

Jubu
Jubu
Little Village
2024

With all but one of these ten tracks credited as group compositions—the exception is the album (nick)namesake's "At Long Last"—the sixty-one plus minutes of Jubu is a wholly instrumental exercise of camaraderie residing right on the cusp of blues and jazz. And while it is certainly a tribute to the solidarity of the union comprised of lead guitarist John Smith, hybrid guitarist Charlie Hunter and drummer Calvin Napper, the recording and mixing by Benjy Johnson (mastered by Dave McNair) tangibly reaffirms the union. Meanwhile, Hunter's production captures not only the human connection between the threesome, but the ambiance of the room(s) at Earthtones Studios in North Carolina where it all took place: given the often booming quality of the audio, its resonant depth may well expand the walls wherever it is played Whereas some cuts, like "Hamster Wheel," are unadulterated grooves, more than a few, including "Carroll Drive," find the musicians traversing the enticing changes intrinsic to good pop material. Apart from the easygoing shuffle that is "McLeansville Blues" and the deliberate twelve-bar excursion of "Totally Convicted," Jim Pugh's liner notes inside the double-fold digi-pak are the most direct reference to the elemental genre, but there still are more than a few allusions to the foundational form, such as the fleeting nods to Jimi Hendrix on "Kwik-Way Nostalgia." There is nothing hurried in any way here, but by the same token, there is no aimless noodling either: this threesome plays with an uninterrupted purpose, one infused with the mutual pleasure of simultaneously sharing their talents and stretching their capabilities.

Jake Shimabukuru/Mick Fleetwood
Blues Experience
Forty Below
2024

The ukulele might seem an improbable, nay incongruous instrument by which to parlay the blues, but in the company of the stalwart personage of Mick Fleetwood (once a John Mayall Bluesbreaker before co-founding his longstanding namesake band), Jake Shimabukuro's main axe sounds right at home. The duo immediately demonstrates how it is reworking the deceptively malleable confines of this durable music by opening Blues Experience with "'Cause We've Ended As Lovers:" one of the standout cuts on the late Jeff Beck's epochal Blow By Blow (Epic, 1975), this Stevie Wonder composition appears here in a haunting rendition rendered all the more poignant through the piercing slide work of guitarist Sonny Landreth. And if that were not enough of a sharp curve, the penultimate cut that is Neil Young's "Rockin' In The Free World" finds these musicians relentlessly pounding away while Shimabukuru's string of notes soars. In between crops up a stormy take on a genuine blues piece, Skip James' "Rollin' 'N' Tumblin,'" plus another apparent non-sequitur in the form of Procol Harum's signature song "Whiter Shade of Pale" (a wry reference to the ongoing appropriation of the genre?). Evidence of the principals' shared generosity of spirit also arrives in the form of a prominent spotlight for Michael Grande's piano on "Need Your Love So Bad (also a feature of "Kula Blues")." Without vocals in place anywhere for its duration, this forty-five minutes-plus is nothing if not unified in both conception and execution, but it is also notably uninterrupted by self-indulgence: the self-restraint that earmarks "Still Got The Blues" is indicative of the LP as a whole. No wonder the gently moody conclusion of "Songbird" mirrors the verdant landscape under a softly sunlit sky on the front cover of the album: everyone involved fulfills their respective roles with panache.

Tracks and Personnel

Do The Rump!

Tracks: Street People; Right Down There; Lonesome Road; Come and Go With Me; Serves Me Right To Suffer; Do The Rump; Come On; Peaches.

Personnel: JD Simo: vocals, guitar, bass; Luther Dickinson: vocals, guitar, bass; Adam Abrashoff: drums.

Jubu

Tracks: Hamster Wheel; Jubu's Poem; CarrollDrive; Kwik Way Nostalgia; Organization's Sake; EG Is Here; Extreme Pleasure; At Long Last; McCleansville Blues; Totally Convicted.

Personnel: Jubu Smith: guitar; Charlie Hunter: hybrid guitar; Eric Gales: guitar; Calvin Napper: drums.

Blues Experience Personnel: Jake Shimabukuru: ukulele: Michael Grande: keyboards; Jason Walfhoff: bass; Mick Fleetwood: drums.

Tracks: Cause We've Ended As Lovers; Rollin' 'N' Tumblin'; Need Your Love So Bad; Kula Blues; Whiter Shade of Pale; I Wanna Get Funky; Still Got The Blues; Rockin' In The Free World; Songbird.

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