Dennis Coffey - Dennis Coffey (2011) [CDRip]

Too rarely, some small justice gets meted out in the music biz; in the 21st century, legendary Detroit guitarist and Motown Funk Brother Dennis Coffey is getting some. Hip-hop and electronic music fans have long sought his seminal recordings for Sussex and his voluminous session dates. His appearance in the 2002 film Standin' in the Shadows of Motown, his autobiography Guitars, Bars and Motown Superstars, and three different late-2000s compilations re-upped his profile. Dennis Coffey, the guitarist's debut for Strut, places his guitar front and center in a multi-generational group of musicians from Detroit and elsewhere. Coffey lays his trademark psychedelic soul wah-wah-and-fuzz guitar to 11 tracks. Some new; others being new versions of legendary jams he played on. The set opens with ultra-funky instrumental orgy "7th Galaxy" (with ex-Big Chief guitarist Phil Durr and Motor City session gods Rayse Biggs and David McMurray on horns, and a rhythm section of session masters bassist Tony “T-Money” Green, drummer Nate Winn, and percussionists Larry Fratangelo and Dennis Sheridan). Other instrumentals include the moody groover "Space Traveler" (with Deadstring Brothers' Jim Simonson on bass and Eric Hoegemeyer on drums), the big horn and guitar burner "Miss Millie" (with Milwaukee's Kings Go Forth), and the wah-wah bass and percussion blowout "Knockabout." These tracks are on a par with Coffey's legendary "Scorpio" and his Black Belt Jones soundtrack. The vocal tracks are no less spectacular. There is the Parliaments' "All Your Goodies Are Gone," with soulster Mayer Hawthorne, and Funkadelic's "I Bet You," featuring the Detroit Cobras' Rachel Nagy and the Dirtbombs' Mick Collins. Fanny Franklin of Orgone lends her voice to a sultry cover of Wilson Pickett's slow-burning "Don't Knock My Love." Rodriguez's venomous "Only Good for Conversation" features Paolo Nutini in a knockout performance, and the Bell Rays' Lisa Kekaula offers a boiling, raw read of Holland-Dozier-Holland's eternal, "Somebody's Been Sleeping" (Coffey played on the 100 Proof (Aged in Soul) original. "Plutonius," a cosmic funk jam, is another Coffey original sung by Herschel Boone and includes a ripping guitar solo by, Durr, and groove alicious B3 by Detroit keyboard master Luis Resto. The album is co-produced to maximum kinetic effect by Al Sutton and Hoegemeyer at Detroit's Rust Belt Studio. Dennis Coffey is overflowing with inspiration and the molten pathos, passion, humor, volume, grit, and nasty grooves that Detroit is famous for. As an artist, Coffey, at 70, is at the top of his game as a guitarist and composer; he proves that he can not only hold his own with the youngbloods, but push toward a new level. This self-titled offering is monster; a masterpiece of tough, psychedelic soul