Since founding the
Easy Eye Sound label and studio in 2017,
Dan Auerbach has produced and issued dozens of recordings, from his own
Black Keys to
Robert Finley,
Leo Bud Welch, and
Marcus King, to name a few.
Auerbach's label offers stripped-down garage rock, raw soul, and raucous blues. This 12-track set was recorded --albeit at different junctures -- at Easy Eye Sound studios and produced by
Auerbach. Essentially a gritty, rootsy 40-minute mixtape, its curation and sequencing are seamless, and unassailable in offering timeless yet contemporary approaches to 21st century blues.
Veteran
R.L. Boyd (a core member of
Otha Turner's
Rising Star Fife and Drum Band) opens with "Coal Black Mattie," a swampy, electric slide and percussion blues worthy of a juke joint dancefloor on a hot Mississippi night.
Finley's "Tell Everybody" follows suit. The guitar riff is snaky, slow, and hypnotic and recalls the one in
Dr. John's "I Walk on Gilded Splinters"; at other points it recalls the
Jelly Roll Kings "Look Over Yonder Wall."
Finley's use of gospel singers as a chorus adds fire and brimstone, with a pre-WWII gospel flavor.
Auerbach's droning psych blues "Every Chance I Get (I Want You in the Flesh)" contains a vamp that intersects
Norman Greenbaum's 1969 hit "Spirit in the Sky" with vintage
Canned Heat.
Jimmy "Duck" Holmes is the owner/proprietor of the Blue Front Cafe in Mississippi, the oldest continuously running juke joint in the U.S. His "Catfish Blues" is minimal, primitive, haunted, and something you might hear in his club after midnight. Despite its subtle drone, it has an impact like a ton of bricks.
Gabe Carter's country-blues "Anything You Need" and the more electrified "Buffalo Road" are filtered through the urban strain of his Chicago home; he never tried to separate traditions, he saw them as an evolutionary process.
Nat Myers is a Korean-American blues poet who cut the album
Yellow Peril with
Auerbach producing.
Myers, an acoustic artist whose aesthetic is rooted in the country-blues of the '30s, offers "Willow Witchin'," a sprightly track hovering between the styles of
Blind Willie McTell and
Taj Mahal. 91-year-old
Leo Bud Welch is a 60-year veteran of the Delta's juke joint scene. He recorded a few acclaimed sides for
Fat Possum in the '90s and early 21st century. His "Don't Let the Devil Ride" is trance-like, gritty, and in mono! The
Black Keys add the unreleased "No Lovin'," a droning psychedelic blues. "Daughter of Zion" is one of two contributions from
Glenn Schwartz. Though he passed in 2018, he was the original guitarist in the
James Gang and
Pacific Gas & Electric. He is joined on the track by guitarist -- and his
James Gang replacement --
Joe Walsh in a winding back-and-forth six-string duel with a primal blues feel. There isn't a weak moment here, not even a middling one.
Auerbach's
Easy Eye Sound is forging a unique path into the future of blues, one artist and one impeccable track after another. ~ Thom Jurek
![evermore [deluxe version]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602435651279_p0_v10_s90x140.jpg "evermore [deluxe version]")
![Midnights [Moonstone Blue Vinyl]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602445789825_p0_v4_s90x140.jpg "Midnights [Moonstone Blue Vinyl]")
![Lover [2 LP]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602455556301_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Lover [2 LP]")
![reputation [Picture Disc] [2 LP]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0843930033157_p0_v5_s90x140.jpg "reputation [Picture Disc] [2 LP]")
![Fearless [Taylor's Version]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602435845104_p0_v4_s90x140.jpg "Fearless [Taylor's Version]")
![1989 [Taylor's Version]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602455542144_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "1989 [Taylor's Version]")
