Sol volume:blue

Sol - volume:blue

While many young, white musicians attempt to replicate the blues masters' art, sol steers clear of imitation in favor of excavation and transport. Sounds carry beyond genre, beyond origin and often beyond the grave. Ancient truths of the blues arrive in some new place, through some new voice, through some kid who is sol.

Reviews

Who is sol? Some kid, I guess. Then again, anybody would look like a kid if they were pictured sitting at a little table, next to a beer-drinking, truth-telling Cootie Stark and a sunglass-wearing, cool-staring guitar slinger like John Ferguson. That's the only glimpse we get of sol, and we don't get that one until we pop open the Volume: Blue CD and remove the disc from its jewel box. Then you see a shot of sol with Ferguson, Cootie and a Heineken, and that's probably worth the price of purchase right there.

Once the disc is out of its casing, it might as well go into your CD player. Then sol reveals himself through grooves and samples and even some guitar and bass playing. He's some kid with good ears; some loopy kid with uncommon understanding; some oddly driven kid who has learned lessons that would seem beyond his years.

For Cootie, Guitar Gabriel, Cool John Ferguson, Neal Pattman, Essie Mae Brooks, Frank Edwards and others, sol is a microphone and a conduit. sol channels blues, altering soundscapes without altering intent. Captain Luke might say a sol construction is "not my type of song," and Captain Luke (as usual) would be right. But Luke's messages aren't lost in sol's funky, postmodern shuffle. While many young, white musicians attempt to replicate the blues masters' art, sol steers clear of imitation in favor of excavation and transport. Sounds carry beyond genre, beyond origin and often beyond the grave. Ancient truths of the blues arrive in some new place, through some new voice, through some kid who is sol.

-Peter Cooper, Nashville, TN.

Songs

1. Intro
Guitar sample: Guitar Gabriel's "Landlord Blues," vocal: Cootie Stark.

2. Black Mattie
Guitar & vocal samples: Robert Wolfman Belfours' Black Mattie, vocal sample:
Guitar Gabriel, lead & rhythm guitar: Cool John Ferguson.

3. Not My Type of Song
Vocal samples: Captain Luke & Macavine Hayes, guitar: Matt Thorn,
bass: sol.

4. Tribute to Gabe (Cool John Version)
Vocal & guitar: Guitar Gabriel, guitars: Cool John Ferguson.

5. Prison Blues
Samples of Neal "Big Daddy" Pattman's "Prison Blues," guitar: Cool John
Ferguson, also samples live performances at Music Maker Blues Revival
concerts.

6. Gotta Have Rain
Vocal sample: Essie Mae Brooks "Rain in Your Life," vocal sample: Guitar
Gabriel, guitar: sol.

7. Cootie's Testimony
Vocal: Cootie Stark, guitars: Cool John Ferguson, also samples of live Music
Maker Blues Revival concerts featuring "Mudcat."

8. Right Here
Guitar sample: James Davis' "Georgia Drumbeat," vocal: Guitar Gabriel.

9. How Sweet that Would Sound
Vocal samples: Cora Flukers' "How Sweet that Would Sound," lead guitar:
Cool John Ferguson. rhythm & wah guitars: sol, vocals: Bajuni Ngoma
recorded in Randa, Kenya.

10. Tribute to Gabe (part 1)
vocal: Guitar Gabriel, guitar: sol

11. Do it Like They Did It
Vocal sample: Jerry "Boogie" McCain, guitar: Microwave Dave & Tim Duffy.

12. Off the Blues
Vocal samples: Cootie Stark & Guitar Gabriel.

13. Mister Frank
Sample: Frank Edwards "Chicken Raid", banjo: Cool John, harp: Abe Reid.
instrumentation not listed: sol

Hidden track

James Eddie Patterson, harp & vocal, Wreck Shop Crew band (Sol & Rob
Evan)