Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
In modern day blues, anything really that fits neatly or even indirectly into the genre post the new Millennium, Walter Trout perhaps only stands behind the legendary Joe Bonamassa and Robert Cray in the queue of great Blues guitarists. His own course has been guided over the last few decades and like his previous album, Blues For The Modern Daze, Luther’s Blues will further enhance this musician’s already sky high reputation.
For someone though who has dominated his profession for what seems forever, in all that time and in all the joy he has prepared and bought to table to serve before the public is a covers album, it just doesn’t seem his style. There perhaps is no need as his works stands out completely as being works of art. However if he is going to do one then the abiding memory of his friendship with the Blues artist Luther Allison has surely guided him to this juncture in his life.
When Luther Allison died in 1997, the genre lost a hero but in Luther’s Blues, the spirit and the passion that Walter Trout must have keenly felt as he remembered his one and only time on stage with him at a jazz festival like all good memories filtered through and conceived this album of covers and all with Walter Trout’s flamboyant and generous ability riding throughout each song.
After 22 solo albums, the change of pace afforded him on this album will come as welcome surprise to his fans and beyond. The music is as familiar as putting on a pair of comfortable slippers and yet finding someone has taken them away to have extra fur lining placed in them, tracks such as the awesome Cherry Red Wine, the extravagant Move From the Hood, Pain in the Streets and All The Kings Horses will all remind the listeners why this 62 year old is as vital now as he was when performing alongside John Mayall, if not more so. The final track on the album, When Luther Played The Blues is a glowing tribute to a man much missed in music circles but whose memory is keenly captured by perhaps the one person who can do him total justice.
A wonderful addition to Walter Trout’s catalogue, Luther’s Blues is a testament to the richness of the Blues.
Luther’s Blues is released on June 10th on Provogue Records.
Ian D. Hall