BBQ Bob & The Spareribs - Rockabilly Blues from Brooklyn

www.BBQ-BOB.com

Let's face it: Most blues music reeks of honky revival. You know the stuff. Amiable white guys who memorize the collected licks of Robert Johnson or more likely Stevie Ray Vaughn or even more likely George Thorogood wreak havoc on the same three chords over and over. Pretty soon the refried hockey blues of Canned Heat is sounding pretty good.

Not so with this outfit. A roster of NYC-NJ blues veterans who have the chops to back up their considerable record collections, BBQ Bob & the Spareribs play it as hard and mean as those excellent Excello sides recently anthologized (and worth your time) by Hip-O / Universal. In fact, on their second CD, Pass the Biscuits, they cover Lonesome Sundown's (Cornelius Green) "My Home is a Prison" (written by J.D. Miller, who also wrote Kitty Wells' "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels"), which appeared on The Excello Story Volume Two. Here, singer Bob Pomeroy's harp traces guitarist Ira Spinrad's lead lines in glorious stereo. Those two do a lot of chasing each other. In place of a twin guitar attack, Spinrad and Pomeroy trade licks between distorted harp and guitar. True telepathy at times.

There's plenty to chew on here. "A Bullet for You" is a muted rumble that recalls the high-wire tension of the Rolling Stones' "Midnight Rambler". "One Step Closer" has the R&B sweetness of Arthur Alexander. Legendary Chicago harpist Little Walter gets a nod of the hat with a cover of "My Baby's Sweeter." "High Cotton" is that merge of raw bottomed blues and country music that some people think the Band accomplished with their first few records. That only shows how laid back hippies can be.

This ain't a nostalgia show. There are eleven originals here that in a blindfold test you wouldn't be able to correctly date. Coulda been written fifty years ago, coulda been yesterday. The rhythm section is a mother and you can hear it steamroll through "Too Bored to Live, Too Dumb to Die," "Hot Biscuit" or "Gorillacillin" if you feel the need to impulsively shake your ass.