A new CD from Blue Touch
by
M Griffin
which follows on from "Grind". Do I detect a theme here? Of course the band’s talented, sexy and crowd pleasing vocalist, Andrea Maria is now "bumpless" following the birth of her daughter, Anna. Plus, since "Grind", the band have a new guitarist, Neil Sadler who also takes the vocals on one track.
With 12 great tracks, all covers, this is a damn good reminder of Blue Touch as they are live and offers a fine variety ranging from the seductive Cray/Clapton song "Old Love", Lieber/Stoller’s rocking "Kansas City", one of four tracks with Alan Cleaves on vox, an excellent mid-tempo blues treatment of Tom Waits’ "Way Down in the Hole", one of a number of tracks that features some lovely guitar work, Otis Redding’s soulful "I’ve Been Loving You Too Long" underpinned by some gorgeous guitar reverb (I don’t know the technical term!), Johnny Winter’s "Black Cat Bone" done super funky style followed by Rufus Thomas’ classic "Walking The Dog", given the Blue Touch touch, some real old style blues with Alfred Fields’ "County Jail" featuring a guitar riff which has shades of Deep Purple & Led Zep about it!
The CD opens with a cracking version of Al Green’s oft covered "Take Me To The River", which has positively Peter Gunn guitar intro to it, and also features no less than four Robert Johnson songs, "Stop Breaking Down", "Steady Rolling Man", "Rambling" and the wonderful "Crossroads" which opens with and features some gorgeous slide guitar and pounds along at a great pace.
Blue Touch pride themselves on the eclecticism of their set lists and this is more than justified by this excellent CD. Listening to it has brought back loads of great memories of seeing them live and made me eager to see them again, soon! With three people taking the vocals, there is loads of variety whilst the twin guitars of Alan Cleaves & Neil Sadler ensure contrasting guitar breaks and interpretation and enables the band to approach songs from different directions. The rhythm section of Merv Griffin on bass & Hugh Lawrenson on drums keep the whole show rock steady.
The CD was recorded at the No Machine Studios in Wokingham where, by good fortune, Neil works!!! He engineered and co-produced and a fine job he and everyone else involved have done! Blue Touch’s "Bump" certainly does not grind on the ear!
