Stony Plain Music
2004
Now My Soul
About This Album
Guitarist Ronnie Earl's realization that you don't need a vocalist to sing the blues freed him up to roam across the vernacular music landscape, dipping into jazz, gospel, and soul, and has made him one of the most innovative and interesting musicians working in contemporary blues. It's hardly a radical step, since scores of jazz musicians have been mining the blues for 80 years without vocalists, and in Earl's case it was a natural shift -- maybe even an obvious one given that he has often cited John Coltrane as a predominant influence. On Now My Soul, his second release from Stony Plain Records, Earl moves a bit back to neutral ground on the vocal issue, with roughly half the tracks featuring singing from either Kim Wilson or Greg Piccolo, and one track, the delightful "Walkin on the Sea," showcases the Silver Leaf Gospel Singers. But the instrumental pieces are the most powerful, allowing Earl's inherent jazz sensibilities to surface, and as an ensemble player, he shines. The album opener, Jimmy Smith's "Blues for J," does a masterful job of capturing Smith's easy-grooving sense of the blues (Dave Limina handles the B-3 duties here), and Piccolo's tenor sax pairs nicely with Earl's guitar for a track that shows nicely how much joy can reside inside the blues.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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