Daddy Mack Blues Band - A Bluesman Looks at Seventy (2015)

produced by Eddie Dattel and Wally Ford of Inside Sounds, A Bluesman Looks At Seventy shows off the accomplished southern blues sound of these veteran players admirably. Indeed, it had this reviewer up on her feet from the very first track, Champagne Fantasy. The main players in the band are Daddy Mack Orr (vocals and lead guitar), James Bonner (rhythm guitar), Harold Bonner (bass) and Fast Eddie Lester (drums). Various other artists are also roped in to help out, with Adam Levin playing the organ and some great saxophone sounds from Carl Wolfe, among others.

Daddy Mack may now be 70 years old, as the title reveals, but he’s still singing well, with his vocals strong clear – sometimes slow and easy, and at other times more upbeat. The lyrics are mostly written by Dattel and Ford but Mack makes them his own: the words of a rural Memphis man, a fisherman relaxing his mind or fixing up his battered old automobile when he can.

Moaning about money, women and working for nothing, Daddy Mack comes across convincingly as a man with a pocketful of blues, while the sound of the album overall is rich and sits authentically within the southern blues tradition.