Blues Matters reviews At The Firehouse

Charlie Morris Band at the Firehouse – Blues Matters review

Oh I like this album a lot. It really is right up my street. Good solid blues, mixing various styles old and new. Recorded, as the title suggests, in live action down in Ruskin Florida this is clearly a band who have honed their collective chops playing together in countless gigs for decades. Consisting of drums, Eric Elsner, bass Andrew Lack, Hammond and various keyboards Kevin Wilder and fronted by Charlie on guitar and lead vocals.

So things kick of with a fine walking shuffle Can’t Get Away From The Blues before a groovy Can’t Help Myself and into a very long slow super tasty Love Her With A Feeling. Superb solos from Kevin and Charlie on this one. Weighing at a hefty nine minutes It could have been double and I would still have been relishing every well-placed note. Nothing grandstanding at all, just the sort of deeply soulful blues that I love.

Back to a more dancing groove with My Baby Don’t Cook but someone sure does as they then invite us via Y’all Come Over For Dinner with deep fried gator tail, grilled grouper and stone crab on the menu. A delicious gumbo of groove morphs into a cover of Ray Charles’s It Should Have Been Me complete with three part harmonies. So it continues with foot tapping songs throughout including a bit of time travel when a Mama Told Me Not To Come (Three Dog Night sound alike) called here The Farm shows up.

Ten originals and four covers are your reward should you decide to invest in this fine collection. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t present at The Firehouse on the night, just kick your shoes off and bop around your living room.

Graeme Scott, Blues Matters

June, 2022