構成数 | 1枚

Here's the Man! contains recordings Bland cut for the Duke label in the early '60s. It has the same intensity and variety of his late-'50s breakthrough album, Two Steps From the Blues, and mimics that album's program of big band-blues swingers, straight blues, and ballads. Bland displays his vocal power throughout Here's the Man! using his volcanic, guttural delivery to easily work through Joe Scott's galvanizing arrangements, especially on "Twistin' up the Road" and "Turn on Your Love Light." He shows stylistic flexibility as well, expertly handling both T-Bone Walker's after-hours classic "Stormy Monday Blues" and the honky tonk-style ballad "You're the One (That I Adore)." In the '70s, Bland would even record an entire album of country standards. Along with Little Milton, Bland took the swinging, soulful blues of Roy Brown and B.B. King and updated it to fit the more polished, yet no less driving soul sound that was emerging around 1960; Here's the Man! is a prime document of Bland's explorations. Since it is out of print, though, look for these fine tracks on Bland's many MCA compilations. ~ Stephen Cook