Dr. Duke Tumatoe & The Power Trio - You've Got The Problem! (2006)

What sets Duke Tumatoe apart from the mob of contemporary guitarists who practice the blues these days is his sense of humor. He usually finds something to chuckle about in the barroom tales he spins, where the pain and misery on display is more often than not self-inflicted and just as often hilariously ironic, at least in Duke's view. Oh, he falls into the trap of tired blues clichés occasionally, which is pretty much endemic in the genre, but then he pops out with a song like "My Baby Is a Nudist" and all is forgiven. At some point when you're down and out you have to laugh to keep from crying, and that's apparently Dr. Tumatoe's philosophy. You've Got the Problem! doesn't break any new ground in this regard, mixing stock blues pieces with goof ball gems like the aforementioned "My Baby Is a Nudist" and the whiskey-drenched title tune, both of which would stand a chance on the country charts if the commercial music industry wasn't so darn divisional. Also worth mentioning here is the mostly acoustic "Mudcat Man" and the closing track, "Moanin' After Blues," which has a wonderful afterhours feel thanks to some jazzy trumpet lines from P.J. Yinger. Elsewhere the album plays by the numbers, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there are approximately one thousand hard working but creatively challenged guitar slingers out there doing this exact sort of generic blues stuff, so it is a little disappointing when the Duke falls into the same bag. When he unleashes that delightfully wicked wit, though, he rises above the mob and becomes something special.