Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
To live up to the family name in a certain profession is perhaps one of the hardest tasks that any person can undertake; when it comes to the arts it is a near certainty that the individual following in the enormous footsteps will be judged with a degree of unfairness that is almost intolerable, absolutely unfair, and without purpose.
A name is surely just a conduit to which the expression has a foundation to lay its artistry upon, and for Devon Allman’s The Blues Summit is a pinnacle of that demonstration. The name matters as an instruction to the world of what to expect, but it in the course of the album’s reveal, the guest appearances which force the ideas further, and the backing once more of Ruf Records which has expertly exemplified the star-studded sound that Mr. Allman wanted to, insisted upon, capture.
The Blues Summit features an almost royal like conference of the charismatic and elite Blues in its glorious application as a modern genre. Christone Ingram, Robert Randolph, Jimmy Hall, Larry McCray, and Sierra Green to name but a few, add an extra dimension to what would arguably have been a monumental album in the making regardless,
The tracks are weighty, they have a determined strength to them that are full of authority, bursting with influence, and that name, the immense pressure that goes hand in hand with the Allman legacy, is elevated, and yet once again shows that the son can, if not eclipse the privilege, then be seen as an equal.
Through tracks such as Peace To The World, the excellent Getting’ Greasy With It, Hands On Knees, the pounding cool of Midnight Lake Erie, and the opening indulgent beauty, featuring the exceptional talent of Christone Ingram, Runners In The Night, the project that combines all the attributes of Blues at its most purest and its most combustible, its combativeness, its ease of peace, are on show for a grateful listener who will be enraptured by the sound dancing in front of them.
The Blues Summit is a classic; it is an inspiration and in great fashion it has the power of Time well within its heart.
Ian D. Hall