Blues Caravan 2008 (Guitars And Feathers)

Europe's Ruf label has a history of packaging blues artists, especially women, together for tours, and this one, recorded live in Bonn, Germany in January, 2008, works especially well. Newcomer Dani Wilde joins veterans Candye Kane and Deborah Coleman (the latter had been part of the previous Ruf blues package) for a rousing performance of blues and soul that condenses and displays the finest attributes of each artist. The tour borrows its name from Kane's 2007 Guitar'd and Feathered album, but it's the U.K.'s Wilde who makes the strongest impression, perhaps because she's somewhat of an unknown entity (her debut was not available in America as of this album's appearance, yet had been released in Europe). As in the past, the performers open and close the concert together, then concentrate on individual sets with a terrific road band backing up each one. The proceedings kick off in strong form with the trio's cover of Ray Charles' defiant "Won't Leave," trading off lead vocals. That drives the raw, party groove for the remainder of the show. Wilde's opening four original songs feature her guitar, but it's her growling, insistent vocals, somewhat similar to those of Janis Joplin, that are such a revelation. She hisses, yowls, croons and snarls her way through a set that ends too soon with the nearly six-minute slow blues of "I Love You More Than I Hate Myself" an unanticipated highlight of the night. Following that would be a challenged for anyone, yet Kane tries her hardest, strutting her way through typically sassy, double entendre jump blues-influenced music that reprises three songs from her recent disc and closes with the appropriately titled "Toughest Girl Alive." Fun and frisky. Coleman appears next, churning out sharp guitar to Luther Allison's "Fight" and ZZ Top's "Jesus Just Left Chicago," some inspired, even unusual covers that she stamps with her unique voice and rugged solos. The trio returns for raucous versions of "Something's Got a Hold of Me" and a rollicking ten-minute "Whole Lotta Love" that starts as a shuffle then shifts to Led Zeppelin's well-known arrangement to help close this high energy gig on an appropriately rowdy note. ~ Hal Horowitz|