CD Reviews

Luther Allison

Underground | Ruf

By TED DROZDOWSKI | January 28, 2008

3.5 Stars

What’s astounding about this eight-song album — besides the rudiments of greatness Allison already displayed at age 18 — is that it’s just seeing daylight after 50 years on a shelf in the late blues singer/guitarist’s wife’s home. Another surprise is that it’s the production debut of Bobby Rush, the soul-blues maverick whose Chicago-based band featured Allison at the time. And then there are the performances. It’s hard to believe it took Allison another 32 years to break through. He delivers like a lust-possessed demon on a crackling “Rock Me Baby” as his quivering voice spars with his keening, Elmore James–like slide guitar. And there’s nothing slack about his night-cat moaning on Magic Sam’s signature “Easy Baby,” or the sophisticated compendium of primal funk “Cut You Loose,” with its ringing single-note leads and deep note bending. The latter sounds like a blueprint for Cream minus the Marshall stacks. In 1958, this was the cutting edge.

Topics: CD Reviews , Bobby Rush

| More

See more deals

view all

[ 05/26 ] "A Natural Order," photographs by Lucas Foglia @ David Winton Bell Gallery

[ 05/26 ] George Orwell's 1984, adapted by Nick Lane @ Gamm Theatre

[ 05/26 ] "2012 RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition" @ Rhode Island Convention Center

ARTICLES BY TED DROZDOWSKI

TOM HAMBRIDGE | BOOM! | August 23, 2011
Roots rock is the new country and ex-Bostonian Tom Hambridge is the style's current MPV.

COUNTRY STRONG | SOUNDTRACK | January 11, 2011
This steaming pile of songs is emblematic of the state of mainstream country music — all artifice, no heart, calculated anthems written to formula and meant, like the film itself, to do no more than capitalize on the genre's current success and rob its undiscriminating fans.

MARC RIBOT | SILENT MOVIES | November 02, 2010
This exceptional, eccentric guitarist has traced a slow evolution from screamer to dreamer.

IN MEMORIAM: SOLOMON BURKE, 1940 — 2010 | October 11, 2010

REVIEW: RONNIE EARL AND THE BROADCASTERS | SPREAD THE LOVE | September 07, 2010
Boston-based blues-guitar virtuoso Ronnie Earl seems to be considering his past on his 23rd album as a leader.