John Lee Sanders & The World Blue Band - Bucket Full of Blues (2016)

Thirty years ago, still in the full bloom innocence, I walked into a little club in Dallas, Texas, and had the top of my head blown off by a bluesman with firepower to burn. The kid’s name was John Lee Sanders, and now the kid’s a man, and the man, steeped in the towering tradition of deep-fried funk, is offering up his Bucket Full of Blues. The bucket is overflowing with creative gifts The bluesman has reached full maturity, and that promise of youth, heard so long ago, has been realized.

“I’ve never claimed to be something I’m not,” he writes in “Handful. “I’ve got my flaws, but my heart is good.” His music, his singing, his aesthetic vision are more than good; they’re flat-out great. At this troubling moment in the history of the Music Nation, John Lee Sanders stands tall. He’s major. In his own words, he’s hitched a ride from Memphis, dealing with the ghosts of Highway 61, arriving in New Orleans in order to comfort us with the good news: that true music is truer than ever. His songs, full-bodied and blood-washed, are rooted in reality. He reminds us that blues are concerned with neither nostalgia nor self-pity. John Lee Sanders’ blues are about nothing less a renewal of strength, a resurrection of the human spirit, a projection of hard-earned hope and a declaration of extravagant love. ~David Ritz