Colin’s Six Of The Best. 2024 Albums

29 December 2024 187 22 5

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2024 – SOME OF THE BEST ALBUM RELEASES

ERIC BIBB: In The Real World

Following last year’s Grammy nominated album Ridin’, this brand new release from blues legend Eric Bibb reflects his thoughts on current world events and his own personal life experiences, whilst remaining interesting, poignant and meaningful.

Eric Bibb brings a unique musical heritage to his music. The son of Leon Bibb, a folk and blues singer who was notably part of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s, the nephew of John Lewis – the pianist of the Modern Jazz Quartet, and the Godson of Paul Robeson, Eric Bibb was surrounded by music, growing up with Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, and Joan Baez as family friends.

In The Real World was recorded at Peter Gabriel’s studio located in Box, England and is an introspective album that doesn’t disappoint with his expert finger picking and dulcet singing tones. If you like your blues acoustic and played with skill, feeling and obvious respect for folk and blues tradition, then pick up a copy of Eric Bibb’s new album. It’s that good.

BETH HART: You Still Got Me

You Still Got Me is quite simply a stunning album. It is classic Beth throughout but with new insight, raw emotions and a few numbers that take her music in new directions but all along her tongue is firmly in her cheek.

On this, her 11th album listeners are enveloped with some of the most powerful tracks Beth has ever written. The album opens with the sultry Savior With A Razor, where a honky-tonk piano jostles with a nagging guitar part performed by Slash kicking this blues fest album into orbit.

When Hart keeps things fresh with narrative writing, the cleanness of her melodies and lyrics only deepens her empathy. You Still Got Me may inspire back catalogue deep dives for newcomers, although many fans’ relationship with Hart began with 2013’s Seesaw, a collaboration with Joe Bonamassa of R&B covers that pays tribute to the soul music they both love.

Beth Hart once again proves she’s a soulful blues survivor, allowing the listener to live inside the sound of her voice and to feel vicariously through her glorious proclamations.

ROSALE CUNNINGHAM: To Shoot Another Day

With her latest release Rosalie Cunningham has put out a collection of well-crafted, perfectly executed, but above all, imaginative songs that could well be the missing link between two apparently incompatible music styles, namely glam rock and prog.

Stylistically the material is sophisticated pop/rock yet drawing influences from many musical genres and incorporating many musical elements. Previously, Cunningham has not been ashamed to carry her heavy late-era Beatles influence to the fore, but with this new album she has invigorated her prog-rock leanings with a vengeance.

From the opening chords of the title-track’s thematic 007 Bond overtures, through to the closing notes of The Premiere with its melodramatic Latin themes, To Shoot Another Day shimmies and prances in all its glorious wit and whimsy and is an exceptionally well recorded album, featuring analogue sound reproduction that is powerful, organic and detailed, suiting the music perfectly.

The highly eclectic nature of the material makes for an engaging and varied listen throughout as the album takes you through flows and ebbs. As a listener you’ll have to be open minded and be willing to embrace whatever the band throws at you. To Shoot Another Day is a perfect example of what art-pop, glam rock and progressive rock should be.

MICHELLE MALONE: Southern Comfort

Michelle Malone may not be a household name here in the UK but the Atlanta, Georgia based singer-songwriter has had a thriving thirty year career across the pond having had many successful albums and joint ventures as well as running her own record label. That’s a lot of trips to the well and back, yet ‘Southern Comfort’ is one of those unique albums that is as close to flawless as you can get.

Influenced by the music of Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Fleetwood Mac and Linda Ronstadt (the clue is emblazoned across her t-shirt) her heart- felt, plain-spoken lyrics about the despairs, joys, and craziness of life in the South are short stories set to a mixture of Jagger/Richards swagger, southern rock, country blues and pop.

Southern Comfort and Like Mother Like Daughter are the opening songs, these two tracks alone are a clear indication that Malone is on the form of her life, both in terms of song writing and vision. The production is crystal clear with every good word you can think of (glorious and dazzling are the first two that come to mind) and features multi-instrumentalist Malone turning in some of the most beautiful and tasteful crystal-gilded guitar playing of her career.

By turns cathartic and euphoric; deep and weightless; defiant and intricate, ‘Southern Comfort’ is an album that everyone should own

MIKE ZITO: Life Is Hard

A native of St.Louis, Missouri, Mike Zito is an award winning bluesman, songwriter and record producer. For his latest release, Zito recorded the album at Sunset Sound Studios in Hollywood, California with Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith producing.

Little Milton’s ’Lonely Man’ kicks things off and sets the bar high, a standard that is maintained through the entire album’s twelve tracks. Zito’s personal heartbreak provide a source that fuels his own compositions; ‘Forever My Love’ is a paean to his late wife Laura having lost her battle to pancreatic cancer in July 2023, it’s a blues ballad in the vein of Gary Moore and is a touching lament.

Elsewhere are covers from a diverse selection of blues and roots icons, including Stevie Wonder’s ‘Have A Talk With God’ and Reverend Gary Davis’ ‘Death Don’t Have No Mercy’. There’s a notably raw down-home feeling that permeates throughout this entire set and is quite possibly Mike’s best album of his career thus far.

DEDE PRIEST & JOHNNY CLARK’S OUTLAWS: Best Pieces

Drawing inspiration from an eclectic mix of genres, including blues, funk, classic rock and soul, Dede Priest & Johnny Clark’s Outlaws have crafted a sound that defies categorization. As a singer, Dede Priest can deliver any blues or soul cliché with ease, or for that matter any rock cliché and her full-throated soulful howls have an organic power that’s impossible to ignore.

Dede is a Texan native but now lives in The Netherlands with her husband Johnny Clark (aka Hans Klerken) making Best Pieces an interesting juxtaposition of cultures. Maintaining a modern chic Euro-centricity with a splash of 1970’s American classic rock thrown into the mix for good measure.

So much of this album absolutely kicks ass, from the stomping guitar lines of ‘Blade Of Grass’ to the roaring buzzy riff on ‘Boat In The Attic’ to the sizzling wah-wah blasts of Soundgarden’s ‘Rusty Cage’. This record reaches a perpetual state of positivity (to borrow part of the lyric) on the slow bluesy title track; those buzzy guitars are swept along on crisp percussion and liquid basslines that are damn near excellent.

This album is nothing short of phenomenal. The musicianship is unbridled, we do not get to hear stuff like this every day. A genre-bending, decades-spanning masterful album.