Red's Blues - Broke Down In The Fast Lane (2020)

Personnel:
Beth Reid-Grigsby, lead singer
Doug Crumpacker, guitar
RW Grigsby, bass
Tim Wilbur, drums

Award nominated members of: Sacramento Blues Society, Blues Foundation, Americana Music Association.

"Broke Down in The Fast Lane" is the third album by Red's Blues, a Californian group led by husbands Beth and RW Grisby. The album has 11 songs, of which 10 are original and the rest is a cover of a Big Joe Turner theme.
All the songs develop personal stories, full of a lot of poetry and smeared with a lot of reality, such as “Broke Down In The Fast Lane”, a song that baptizes this production and that gives it an opening, which talks about the current situation in the United States.
Another current song, which talks about what happens when someone very showbiz becomes president of a country, is “Flim Flam Man”, with a rock sound from the 60s.
With the same tone of the 60 comes “Road Scholar” while “Howlin 'Winds”, the only version of the album, handles a bit of the barrelhouse for a theme originally oriented to blues-jazz.
"Sweet Karma" is a song with a Stone touch, quite remarkable, by the way, but with a melodic and voice change, it immediately leads one to think of Dusty Sprinfield.
The taste for rock'n'roll is present in “Forty Years Of Trouble”, a song dedicated to married couples who have been together for many years, with that touch of the Farfisa organ that Sam The Sham did with “Wolly Bully”.
This Red's Blues album has a song dedicated to the late harmonica player Lazy Lester. This is "A Word About Gossip", based on "A Word About Woman" by Lester. Here we talk about how fake news and gossip have taken over social media, particularly in this time of pandemic.
Another tribute to a music glory is in “Hands Off,” a song with a nightclub atmosphere, which recalls the adored Peggy Lee. The ending is "Say What", an instrumental that sounds like a slow version of "Hideaway" by Freddie King.
Beth Grisby on vocals, RW Grisby on bass, Doug Crumpacker on guitar and Tim Wilbur on drums make up Red's Blues, accompanied on “Broke Down In The Fast Lane” by high-quality musicians friends like Johnny Burgin on guitar. , Rick Estrin on harmonica or Kid Andersen on keyboards and production.
Red's Blues makes very good music, always with a base of blues and rock'n'roll, which hits the mark for those who like this type of sound. "Broke Down In The Fast Lane" is an evocative album, which makes you think about hearing again that music that has inspired the band from California.