Artist: Eddie Martin
Title: Black White And Blue
Year Of Release: 2016
Label: Blueblood Records
Genre: Blues Rock
Quality: 320 kbps
Total Time: 49:13
Total Size: 115 MB
Tracklist:
1. Mississippi Sound (4:54)
2. Angry (5:25)
3. Black White And Blue (5:10)
4. I Choose You (5:28)
5. Too Much Choice (4:25)
6. Graceful Ways (4:39)
7. I've Lost My Phone (3:24)
8. How (4:44)
9. Song Of Five Things (4:01)
10. It All Depends (6:59)
Explosive and exciting: That's how a blues rock album should start, and Eddie Martin's 10th studio album "Black White and Blue" begins like it means to take no prisoners. But if you are expecting endless guitar soloing and a generic list of grooves instead of proper songs - so often the case with blues-rock releases - you are soon enlightened. Martin's songs may ROCK but they are well-crafted and sophisticated.
After 2 rave-reviewed big band projects, the blues-man Eddie Martin is back with 10 original songs and a punchy trio for his 16th release. "Black White and Blue" marks a career pinnacle for this prolific musician and his 30-year mission to explore, study and update blues traditions. His humble respect to the Afro-American legacy goes deep and he is not shy to acknowledge the racism that gave birth to the blues. But here he is also cool about the contribution of his white-boy contemporaries since the era of Classic Rock. A verse in the album title song puts it like this "The African legacy shines like a jewel..We're now in a blend, but the history is bruised: It's all black, white and blue."
Martin can strut a blues-rock guitar solo with the best of them (Hendrix and SRV influences resonate on "Angry" and the title track "Black, White and Blue" for example), but Martin is all about pushing the genre forward. Alongside his fluid slide playing and pyrotechnic Strat-wielding he also showcases his extraordinary simultaneous harp and guitar soloing skills. In fact, for all the simplicity of the line-up here, this album is like a lesson in how many different textures and sounds you can treat a bunch of strong songs to in a trio.
Martin is full of surprises and, running his own record label, he relishes the creative freedom this allows to do something fresh and different each release. If it means his work is sometimes difficult to pigeon-hole then don't worry. As Willie Dixon said "Blues is the roots: the rest is the fruits". Eddie comes out rocking on this one. But its nothing if not a juicy new fruit to savour from the blues stall of the "Ambassador of British Blues".
