JAMES BLOOD ULMER
Bad Blood In the City: The Piety Street Sessions
Hyena
· The best blues this side of Fat Possum.
With the heyday of blues long since gone and current artists cleaning up their sound, modern blues is a tough sell. The sometimes ugly underbelly of American music just isn’t as raw and dirty as it used to be. However, On Bad Blood in the City, James Blood Ulmer has found a way to contemporize the blues without losing his edge.
For three albums, Ulmer has worked with Living Color guitarist-producer Vernon Reid, and the ’80s axe man has found a way to maintain a vintage sound that speaks to Ulmer’s almost four-decade career. On an album that veers from bass-heavy funk tracks to slow-as-hell blues laments, Ulmer’s searing guitar work is balanced with great harp playing, smoldering keyboards and Ulmer’s gravelly vocals. But music is only half the equation. Lyrically, Ulmer uses Bad Blood in the City to address hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Surprisingly, none of it feel preachy. Bad Blood in the City is proof that while you can teach an old dog new tricks, that old dog might have known those tricks all along.
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