From criticalpopcorn.com on Naked Garden:

To offer a little intro, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real are bassist Corey McCormick, drummer Anthony LoGerfo, percussionist Tato Melgar, multi-instrumentalist Logan Metz and guitarist/vocalist Lukas Nelson. New album Naked Garden is somewhat of a companion to 2019’s Turn Off The News (Build A Garden) but this record isn’t just here for the sake of it, these are beautifully crafted songs longing for a life of their own. Produced by Promise of the Real and John Alagia, the band offer you a total of 15 tracks, 10 of which are brand-new, previously unreleased tracks and 5 new versions of songs that originally appeared on the aforementioned 2019 release, and you know everything here has all the right intentions.

Naked Garden is the sound of a band fully immersed in the moment, this natural-sounding collection drifts through the ether with a wonderfully relaxed, and yet progressively impulsive, heart and soul. Opening track, and fan favourite, Entirely Different Stars talks of getting lost into the galaxy, taking the one you want to head off and explore beyond the beyond, moving from mellow to an foot-tapping bass story of wanting a better life, well, maybe for everyone and particularly those who appreciate the truth of what we have right in front of us. It’s quite the journey as well, a 7-minute opener drifts off into experimentation, and as we’re floating off with Pink Floyd‘s divine guidance, you can almost see those other stars flickering in their in the deep, distant darkness.

You might have already heard the pre-album-released Civilised Hell (Alternate Version) already, which passes by admirably with a sure-to-encouraged old-fashioned guitar solo concluding the track (it’s made for a live show-off), and also the previously shared alongside Couldn’t Break Your Heart, which brings out the big guitars and continues the love-in.

There’s the fun, sardonically optimistic tale of Back When I Cared, which may well relate to an old relationship that’s past and gone but also has a vibe that relates to all the overreaction we see in the continual negative news. It’s a wonderful fight back to that kind of feeling and with the line ”I’m a happy man now than back when I cared” – you relate in whichever way hits home to you.

Moving on down through the track list, you can feel the sweet-cradling-caress of Movie in my Mind, which sways melodic motifs across the summer-to-be-breeze that, I’m sure, so many of us cannot wait to see return – the hopeful images of now and the positive future, all filtering through. There’s a world we know we really love, no matter how far away it might be at the moment. Focus on the Music gave me a Bowie/Lennon edge in its moulding, and this is (of course) a very good thing plus a little sprinkle of Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy’s The Sounds Are Always Begging before it dives into that space-like Life on Mars Bowie-era, a true amalgamation of music.

Exploring the Naked Garden further, we funk it up with a mix of live studio chat “It’s like we’re playing live guys” opener to My Own Wave, and that’s a good summary of the album, pulling through that ‘you’re there’ vibe, which is what’s been picked up in this record. Interestingly, many of the creative sessions for the album took form at the legendary Rick Rubin‘s place Shangri-La in Malibu and as Lukas sings ‘I feel so free’, your consciousness feels it as the congas/bongos fill the space in-between.

Other stand-out tracks include Out in L.A., with classic grooves, telling the story of a girl once loved, living their different lives now but it’s another upbeat tale; Speak the Truth (Alternate Mix) also stands out and then it’s the country waltz on closing track The Way You Say Goodbye, celebrating that falsetto from Lukas that rounds off over an hour of heartfelt music to drift away with, so turn off the news and let these folks take you somewhere quite wonderful.

From markhamreview.com on Say Somethin’:

There are few voices in popular music that are truly iconic; a vocal that can instantly summon an era.

David Clayton-Thomas happens to have one. Simply reading the phrase, “What goes up, must come down” will bring his voice to the minds of millions.

Of course, Clayton-Thomas first sang that line nearly 52 years ago as the front man for Blood, Sweat, and Tears. But that moment, and Spinning Wheel, the song it begins, ensured that his voice would be heard for a very long time.

Nevertheless, it would be foolish to think that because one musical moment has become iconic, that there aren’t dozens or even hundreds of other brilliant highlights in a career that has lasted for more than half a century. Millions of albums sold and an armload of Grammy awards prove it.

Clayton-Thomas brings his 10-piece band to the Flato Markham Theatre on January 23 at 8 p.m.

Born in Surrey, England on September 13, 1941, the child of a Canadian soldier and a British music student, his family relocated to North York after the war. Despite the lovely suburban setting Clayton-Thomas had a troubled relationship with his father and left home at the age of 14. Soon enough he found himself making short stays at various jails.

He inherited a love of music from his mother, so when a fellow inmate left behind a guitar he began to teach himself to play the blues. It seems that all he needed was a little direction because it wasn’t long before he was performing on the Yonge Street strip in Toronto and in the legendary Yorkville coffee houses of the 1960s.

When a local recording of Clayton-Thomas got the attention of famous Canadian Paul Anka, he was invited on Anka’s show Hullabaloo in New York. From there Clayton-Thomas moved to New York and started getting the lasting attention of anyone who hears him blowing the walls of clubs in Greenwich Village.

One of these listeners was folk singer Judy Collins. It was her that connected Clayton-Thomas with Blood, Sweat, and Tears.

“Well, I wasn’t a trained musician,” laughs Clayton-Thomas, when asked about what made his voice stand out to people. “Honestly, I think setting my untrained voice against these incredibly well-trained players grounded the music in a way; and gave our fans a place to start listening.”

His work with the band has become, naturally, the classic version of a band that has nearly always had a rotating lineup of talented musicians. This version of Blood, Sweat, and Tears sold well over 10 million albums, won five Grammy awards and had a string of hit singles like Spinning Wheel, And When I Die, You Make Me So Very Happy, and Go Down Gamblin.

After this initial success and around the time that he performed at Woodstock, Clayton-Thomas realized that it wasn’t accolades and reward that was driving his musicianship.

“Woodstock was a movement, not a concert,” he says. “It’s easy to think of it as a cool show, but it was less about music than people think. It was about coming together to change things for the better. That’s why I think we’re all here.”

This idea hasn’t been far from his music and career ever since. Rather than chasing his initial success for a repeat, he began a solo career that featured his songwriting and its focus on important topics and issues.

“The music I came up with was always about something, Clayton-Thomas says. “I wanted to do something important. I still want the music I make to mean something; to inspire something.”

In 2004, Clayton-Thomas moved back to Canada where he formed his current band under his own name. While he’s never stopped performing live, his recorded output has exploded since his move home, with nine albums since and a new one, Say Somethin’, on the way in early 2020.

“Say Somethin’ is an album about saying something,” Clayton-Thomas says. “There are songs on there about climate change, immigration, politics, the justice system, and gun control. The real issues of our time”

The album’s first single, Never Again, was inspired by the movement for change started by the young survivors of the Parkland school shooting in Florida. The track became something of an anthem for some in the movement and attracted the rage of those who opposed it. Advertising for the track was censored by social media sites as a result.

“That’s the thing about all these songs,” he says. ‘I feel like they need to be heard now.”

The show in Markham will feature all of the hits you would expect from a David Clayton-Thomas show, but it will also save room for this urgent new music.

“We got a chance to try out the show this past November at Koerner Hall in Toronto,” he says. “It was a great night and a great show. We can’t wait to bring it up to Markham.”

And of course, he’ll have his iconic voice with him too. Despite a half-century of use, it continues to cut through. When asked what it’s like to have such a voice, the music legend finds himself humble.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” he says. “I try not to think about it. I don’t think I could and still try to make the music I actually want to make.”

From toronto.citynews.ca on Solo:

Gordon Lightfoot’s first studio album since 2004 finds him displaying the pillars of his songwriting on “Solo,” a brave and unvarnished work teeming with maps of roads taken and avoided.

Most of the songs on the album were written and first recorded — but then totally forgotten — not long before he suffered a debilitating abdominal aortic aneurysm in 2002.

Rediscovering them recently on a pair of CDs, Lightfoot’s decision to reinterpret the 10 songs on his own with just his guitar results in one of his most direct and intimate albums.

Putting himself and the tunes under a microscope could have been a risky move, but it pays off. The 81-year-old Canadian’s voice is reedier — especially for someone who also had to recover from a 2006 stroke and already a decade ago was falsely reported as having passed away — but it still carries his characteristic emotional charge.

Opener and first single “Oh So Sweet” and “Return Into Dust” are among the tunes with a view of the past that swings between pride, remorse and acceptance and even among the regrets there are things to be grateful for.

“Better Off” is a tongue-in-cheek meditation from someone whose situation is not at all improved, while “Just a Little Bit” reflects the tediousness of everyday lives and chores. There is something in the mood and melody of “The Laughter We Seek” that’s very distantly reminiscent of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Closer “Why Not Give It a Try” presents a variety of choices with the response to some being “I just want to stay home,” a wise pick in this pandemic era.

Lightfoot says he wanted fans to hear “what songs sound like when first written.” The stark approach could have turned out to be reckless. Instead, it’s at the heart of what makes “Solo” such an endearing set.

From theartsdesk.com on Citizens Of Boomtown:

The new Boomtown Rats album – their first for 36 years! – is both preposterous and rather wonderful. This is as it should be. The Irish band surfed the so-called “New Wave” after punk rock to brief chart-topping stardom. They had some cracking songs (“Rat Trap” is a gem), but were reviled by the era’s Year Zero arbiters of taste. This was because they were clearly a Stones-ish R&B unit who’d jumped the bandwagon, the outrageous mugging of frontman Bob Geldof sealing the deal. That, however, is all ancient history and they return with a set that’s as goofy as it is contagious, clearly having a ball.

The original Boomtown Rats fizzled out in the early/mid-Eighties, amid Geldof’s involvement in Band Aid/Live Aid. They never seemed sure, during that fizzle, whether they wanted to be pop, rock or something else completely. Such an attitude suits 2020 and Citizens of Boomtown is, with two hideous exceptions, a consequent blast. Take “She Said No”, a dirty garage blues of unreconstructed sexual politics that comes on somewhere between Nick Cave’s Grinderman project and old US Sixties trash-bands such as The Shadows of Knight.

The most noticeable seasoning here, however, is flavours of the Bowie-Iggy Pop-Lou Reed Seventies triumvirate; from the self-explanatory stomp of “Trash Glam, Baby”, to the Transformer-meets-The Beatles “Passing Through” and “Here’s A Postcard”, to “Sweet Thing”, which sounds like an Iggy Pop cut from 1980. Unfortunately, there are a couple of horrors aboard – the disgraceful “KISS”, which sounds like a Toploader pub singalong, and “Rock ‘N Roll Yé Yé”, whose title tells you all you need to know.

Happily the album ends in dementedly enjoyable territory, with two unlikely punk-electro-disco bangers, “Get a Grip” and the terrace chant shouty “The Boomtown Rats”. Imagine The Rolling Stones crossed with the KLF at their most energised and you’re halfway there. Both tracks are bonkers yet likeable, sounding nothing like anyone would expect The Boomtown Rats to sound. The same could be said for much of this ebullient album. An unexpected pleasure.

From americanbluesscene.com on Rebel Moon Blues:

Her voice is gritty, raspy, and a hundred other synonyms for exactly what I’ve always thought a female voice in the blues should sound like. Sass Jordan, with those vocals that conjure Janis Joplin, Koko Taylor, Gaye Adegbalola, Howlin’ Wolf, and Gregg Allman is poised to release her newest offering, Rebel Moon Blues via Stony Plain Records on March 13, 2020.

Jordan is a Canada-based artist, born in the UK and raised in Montreal. Her first single, “Tell Somebody,” from her debut album of the same name won her the JUNO Award for Most Promising Female Vocalist in 1988. Since then, she’s been nominated three more times and won the Billboard Best Female Rock Vocalist award. But that’s not all. She is currently on an International 30-date tour — including Tel Aviv, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, and Canadian stops in Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg and Toronto — with A Bowie Celebration, the critically acclaimed, one-of-a-kind roving tribute to the late legend, featuring a distinct alumni of former bandmates.

A pioneer of powerful, gritty female-fronted rock, Jordan has worked alongside fellow greats like Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, and Van Halen, among many more, but her love for the blues has never been stronger.

Jordan co-produced the eight song Rebel Moon Blues with D#, featuring her signature rock goddess vox on seven unmistakable covers and one brand new original track. “The Blues has been there through my entire career,” she says. “People have always said, ‘You’re so bluesy.’ And it’s true. My singing is blues-inflected. My songs use blues-type licks. I didn’t do any of that on purpose. It isn’t contrived. It’s just me.”

First out of the gate is the Sleepy John Estes classic, “Leaving Trunk,” made famous by Taj Mahal on his debut album. After a few coughs that sound amazingly like me in the morning, the sound of guest blues harp master Steve Marriner pierce the veil. Although Jordan’s vocals are distinctively Joplin-esque, she is not impersonating anyone. It’s 100% pure Sass and fits hand in glove with this electrified Delta vibe.

“My Babe,” follows, again with Marriner’s harp out front, and some of the gravel leaves Jordan’s voice, replaced by the soulful sound of the golden age of Chess. One thing that is immediately noticeable is that she doesn’t change the lyrics – at all – as many female artists would do so that the song comes from a woman’s perspective. She explains, “To me, what makes these songs fresh, besides our energy, is that it’s a female doing traditionally male stuff. And I sing the lyrics the way it was written…  If the singer’s singing about, ‘My girl,’ I sing, ‘My girl.’ That’s what puts the icing on the cake. I like approaching the songs the way they were written. I find that not messing with the original gender is particularly relevant in today’s climate. It’s great that we can get away with doing that now.”

The other artists on the record are her touring band of guitarists Chris Caddell and Jimmy Reid, bassist Derrick Brady and drummer Cassius Pereira (the Champagne Hookers), augmented by Marriner and keyboardist Jesse O’Brien. They recorded the album the way these songs would have been recorded originally; in one room, all together, at one time. You can literally feel the jubilant vibe that comes across.

Next up is Keb’ Mo’s “Am I Wrong,” replete with resonator guitar, and hand-clapping/foot-stomping rhythm. It’s stripped to the bare bones, but anything else would have diminished the brilliance of this cover rather than improved it. Jordan has more soul in her voice on this track than many artists who make their living in that genre. “One Way Out,” has that same hand-clap rhythm but when both guitars kick in, it picks up into a polite nod to the Brothers Allman. The slide work, while great, isn’t quite up to par with what Duane would have played, but c’mon. That said, the signature guitar harmonies add that certain southern flavor that makes this song a true classic.

Jordan brings the funk with “Palace of the King.” Written by Leon Russell, Don Nix, and Donald “Duck” Dunn, it’s just as funky as Freddie King played it back in ’71. Again, Jordan pulls not one vocal punch, but lays it out both powerful and sweet.Sass’ voice softens a bit in the beginning of “Too Much Alcohol,” another song stripped down to her vocals and Caddell’s resonator guitar. As the song continues, one hears the joy in Jordan’s voice and can tell she is truly in her element. With one final scream she brings it to a close and incites gooseflesh.

On the slow grind side, the band brilliantly covers Gary Moore’s “Still Got the Blues.” Jordan dismisses any grit on this one, her voice ringing out clear as a cathedral bell. It clocks in at nearly six minutes that I needed to play over and over. Although I love the grit that comes from a blues vocalist, and in this case a blues singing rock star, I have to admit, this was my favorite track.

The one original song on Rebel Moon Blues is “The Key,” penned by Jordan and her husband Guess Who singer Derek Sharp. Although not as traditionally bluesy as the rest of the album, “The Key,” adds the elements of not only a male duet vocal, but also a complete chorus. It’s blues rock as good as any out there today.

After three decades in the business, many singers lose that certain something that may have launched their career. Not so with Sass Jordan. Not only is her voice as muscular as ever, I think, like fine wine, it’s improved over the years. Rebel Moon Blues is her first venture into an entirely blues music record, after nearly a decade since her last studio album. I’ll say an extra little prayer tonight that it’s not her last.

From vancouverisawesome.com on EJ Vol. II:

Eric Johnson’s new album shows the amazing Texas guitar wizard moving another mystifying step closer to a singer-songwriter role.

Nine of the 13 tracks on “EJ Vol. II” are mostly sung ballads, some featuring a string quartet. A few of the songs have memorable melodies and gorgeous guitar solos, but they pale in comparison to the purely instrumental tunes showcasing Johnson’s fluid chops and exciting musicianship.

Among the vocal tunes, “Different Folks” is one of the best, with a trademark electric guitar tone and lyrical solo as Johnson expresses his heartfelt thoughts in a manner similar to John Lennon’s “In My Life.”

“Divanáe,” about a struggling painter and his model around the time of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, also hits the spot, while it’s the instrumental break on “Let a Friend Find You,” led by a gentle acoustic guitar and an aching lap steel, that is its most beautiful section.

A fine take on Bert Jansch’s arrangement of the traditional “Black Waterside” leaves off the vocals, sparing you the specifics about its tale of deception and cruelty, but the music’s interpretation is clear.

“Charldron’s Boat” takes a breathless trip down the rapids and “Lake Travis” is a short but excellent acoustic guitar showcase. The also brief “For the Stars” ends the album on another touching note, as Johnson’s piano and guitar beautifully reflect thoughts and feelings about the loss of his mother.

“For the Stars” is also an excellent example of what makes Johnson’s insistence on so many vocal performances so baffling, as his guitar playing is loaded with an abundance of emotion and sensitivity that only the best singers can hope to emulate.