You are hereAlbum Review: Eddie Martin - Folk & Blues (Blue Blood Records)
Album Review: Eddie Martin - Folk & Blues (Blue Blood Records)
Eddie Martin is no stranger to either folk or blues and delivers a dozen new selections on this his eleventh album to date. With a sort of 'have National Resophonic guitar, blues harp, bass drum and dog, will travel' attitude, Eddie continues the traditional lineage of British blues players stretching back to Alexis Korner in the late 1950s, who manages to play the blues with an unswerving respect to the genre, but at the same time bringing something new and vibrant to the music.
Recorded over a three day period, this totally acoustic self-penned album demonstrates the sort of intimacy reserved for small gatherings; a highly personal album shared only at the time of recording with his engineer son, Joe Garcia, whose attention to detail doesn't go unnoticed.
Nominated not only in the Best Guitarist category but also Best Harmonica Player category in this year's British Blues Awards, Martin fuses folk and blues styles in equal measure to create an album that would find a home in collections of fans of both genres, without a single eyebrow raised.
With the one live track recorded at Bristol's Hard Rock Café, Martin pays homage to Charlie McCoy's Stone Fox Chase, familiar to anyone who religiously watched the Old Grey Whistle Test in the early 1970s, with the title of Martin's harmonica solo entitled Still Chasing That Fox, bringing all the sweaty back room blues atmosphere to an otherwise sweat-free album.
Whilst Kind Lady Moon has all the boogie-woogie groove of a John Lee Hooker standard, the instrumental Butterflies owes more to the guitar wizardry of the Davy Graham/Bert Jansch school. Month of Mondays shows an additional respect for the late John Martyn with an atmospheric and melancholy number that wouldn't be too far out of place on Solid Air.
Closing with an instrumental recalling Ry Cooder's playful take on Joseph Spence's Bahaman slack key style,the excellent Old London Blues would have benefitted further from a few grunts and moans throughout, but that's just me wallowing in nostalgia.
Allan Wilkinson
Northern Sky
