Luke Winslow-King - Blue Mesa

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 39:40
Size: 90.8 MB
Styles: R&B, Country blues
Year: 2018
Art: Front

[3:39] 1. You Got Mine
[3:56] 2. Leghorn Women
[4:00] 3. Blue Mesa
[3:04] 4. Born To Roam
[5:15] 5. Better For Knowing You
[4:53] 6. Thought I Heard You
[3:33] 7. Break Down The Walls
[3:19] 8. Chicken Dinner
[3:57] 9. After The Rain
[4:00] 10. Farewell Blues

Adept at mixing country, blues, R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, and folk influences intuitively and masterfully, Luke shapes a mood from many sources and shepherds it to a unifying place of acceptance and hope. Both stately and approachable, manifestly proficient but deeply personal.

"Don’t look for ferocious twists and turns on Luke Winslow-King’s “Blue Mesa.” Though he well knows life is usually far from trouble-free, this is a collection of soulfully simple and effective songs with a wide range of guitar sounds and a mix of blues, rock, folk and boogie. Returning to his native Cadillac, Michigan, after a long stint in New Orleans, Winslow-King recorded the album in the Tuscan region of Italy with a band including guitarist Roberto Luti, drummer Chris Davis, keyboard player Mike Lynch and Christian Carpenter on bass." ~Pablo Gorondi

Blue Mesa mc
Blue Mesa zippy

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Luke Winslow-King - I'm Glad Trouble Don't Last Always

Size: 101,7 MB
Time: 37:53
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2016
Styles: Blues, Folk, Country
Art: Front

01. On My Way (3:42)
02. I'm Glad Trouble Don't Last Always (4:16)
03. Change Your Mind (3:30)
04. Heartsick Blues (3:41)
05. Esther Please (4:36)
06. Watch Me Go (4:43)
07. Act Like You Love Me (3:14)
08. Louisiana Blues (4:58)
09. No More Crying Today (5:08)

The spare, high lonesome bluesy slide guitar that kicks off the opening gospel-inspired “On My Way” for Winslow-King’s third Bloodshot release (and fifth overall) is an indication of the distraught nature of the majority of what follows. The breakup theme running through this set is different and deeper than many we’ve heard before. The intensity of the sorrow infused through the songs on the somewhat deceptively upbeat I’m Glad Trouble Don’t Always Last is reflected on titles such as “Heartsick Blues,” “Change Your Mind,” “Act Like You Love Me” and, perhaps most powerfully, a direct plea to his soon to be ex — by name — in “Esther Please.”

Winslow-King has proven himself to be a respected musicologist of American roots over his past releases. Additionally, his history of teaching music as well as being a street musician in his adopted home of New Orleans has resulted in albums that reflect a decidedly retro spirit. While nothing here screams contemporary, the singer/songwriter/guitarist and his six piece band shift into a blues-inflected vibe that feels natural and doesn’t mimic styles of the past. Songs such as the sorrowful “Watch Me Go” (“tell me if you love me/ otherwise watch me go”) and the acoustic country folk that quotes Hank Williams in “Heartsick Blues” use traditional styles but never appear musty or overly referential of the older sounds that have dominated Winslow-King’s earlier releases.

The singer’s grainy, everyman voice works beautifully with this often sorrowful material, making it believable and potent. He belts out the repeated riffs associated with Mississippi Delta blues on the gutsy guitars of the title track, a song that may imply better days are coming but reflects Winslow-King’s turbulent feelings about the split both musically and lyrically. Even though the tunes are credited to him, it’s hard not to think of Muddy Waters, one of whose hits shares its “Louisiana Blues” title with this album’s similar sounding tune. Regardless, it provides Winslow-King a palette to display his formidable slide skills on the disc’s most openly blues moment.

It’s no coincidence he closes with the hopeful, sweet mid-tempo “No More Crying Today,” where he tries to shake off the bitter feelings and look to a more positive future, having reflected on his sadness and anger over the previous eight selections. It’s a wonderful way to wrap an album that’s almost painfully honest and forthright and shows Winslow-King doesn’t need to relive America’s musical past, or even his own, in order to create moving songs influenced by it. ~ Hal Horowitz

I'm Glad Trouble Don't Last Always

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Luke Winslow-King - The Coming Tide

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 35:04
Size: 80.3 MB
Styles: Country blues, Delta blues
Year: 2013
Art: Front

[2:46] 1. The Coming Tide
[3:00] 2. Moving On (Towards Better Days)
[3:14] 3. Let 'em Talk
[2:19] 4. Staying In Town
[2:49] 5. Keep Your Lamp Trimmed And Burning
[3:13] 6. You Don't Know Better Than Me
[3:12] 7. I've Got The Blues For Rampart Street
[3:30] 8. You & Me
[3:34] 9. I Know She'll Do Right By Me
[4:29] 10. Ella Speed
[2:53] 11. I've Got My Mind Set On You

Listening to Luke Winslow-King’s third full-length album is like taking a stroll through the artist’s adopted home of New Orleans; his Bloodshot label debut is the sound of community, emotional duality,spiritualism, and lived-on-the-streets-not-stored-in-abottle historical preservation. It is the sound of rickety wooden porches on humid summer days, the grimy streets of New Orleans’ neighborhoods beyond the French Quarter, the celebration and solemnity of centuries old churches and gathering places, and the anything-is-possible attitudes of smoky music halls and folk clubs.

Recorded at Piety Street Studios in New Orleans, The Coming Tide brings together Winslow-King’s formal music education with a street-busking resilience, a proficiency on bottleneck slide guitar, the featured vocals (and washboard playing) of Esther Rose, and a cast of A-plus local players. The result is a vibrant amalgam of early 20th century jazz, Delta blues, American folksong, and Southern gospel.

Just as the Crescent City’s famous parades and joyous second lines are known as “jazz funerals without the body,”The Coming Tide asserts that while life’s issues can be dire, there’s always a reason to find the silver lining. When Winslow-King and Esther Rose harmonize like tag-team town criers on the title track, it’s easy to be transported in time and place. “You better come inside for the coming tide,” sung amid a scurrying hi-hat/tomtom shuffle, buoyant upright bass, and languid brass line, settles the nerves and sends the crowd back home to make amends before the shit hits the fan.

Without blatantly narrating each scene in a way that other songwriters might, The Coming Tide naturally gives the listener a cinematic feeling of distinct atmospheres,moods and the people that come with them. Rose clickclacks the washboard on “Movin On (Towards Better Days)” while an animated trombone-trumpet conversation brings to life the scandalous, noisy cabaret. “Staying in Town,” a gently waltzing love story between two once-ramblers, plays like a two-minute diddy between cornmeal ads on Saturday evening AM radio. “You & Me” is a crinkled black & white snapshot of nights dancing cheek-to-cheek at the juke joint and "So Tired" jumps with a proto-rockabilly energy.

Later Winslow-King turns up the Texas heat on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” and flashes his nearly vocal, rubber band bendy bottleneck slide guitar skill. The album-closer is a pleasantly unexpected, stylistically dark take on Rudy Clark’s “I’ve Got My Mind Set On You” (you might remember the more famous version by the Traveling Wilburys) that leaves you wanting more.

The Coming Tide mc

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Luke Winslow-King - Everlasting Arms

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 46:47
Size: 107.1 MB
Styles: Delta blues, Country blues
Year: 2014
Art: Front

[3:45] 1. Everlasting Arms
[3:11] 2. Swing That Thing
[3:01] 3. I'm Your Levee Man
[4:30] 4. Graveyard Blues
[3:26] 5. Cadillac Slim
[2:47] 6. La Bega's Carousel
[3:04] 7. The Crystal Water Springs
[3:21] 8. Wanton Way Of Loving
[1:28] 9. Interlude (As It Goes)
[4:15] 10. Last Night I Dreamed My Birthday
[3:00] 11. Domino Sugar
[0:54] 12. Interlude 2
[4:49] 13. Home Blues
[5:11] 14. Traveling Myself

The collection of 14 songs represents a spectrum of emotions and textures. “Swing That Thing” is a burner; it’s equal parts Delta punk rock and jivin’ city blues with a wonderfully raunchy resonator guitar tone that will have you in convulsive fits on the dance floor and Luke’s searing vibrato to knock you on your ass. “Levee Man” is what it would sound like if Cole Porter wrote a cheeky love letter for the burlesque show, complete with tantalizing trumpet, trombone and clarinet cat calls. And with its kinetic, Friday-night calypso beat, it’s easy to imagine “La Bega’s Carousel” is what Hunter S. Thompson may have heard inside the corrugated tin-roofed rum dives of Cuba.

Winslow-King balances the optimism with a spiritually heavier side in tunes like the piano-led ballad “Graveyard Blues,” with its pitch-black lyrics, “They’ll be hanging me tonight/ When the stars are lit/ And the moon shone bright/ I finally found one true way to lose/ My lowdown graveyard blues.” “Wanton Way of Loving” brings Esther Rose to the spotlight as the misunderstood country belle (“My wanton way of loving/ Now I’m bound to roam”), showing off her simultaneously steely and porcelain vocal tone, backed by a wilting, wandering violin melody.

Recorded amongst four studios – primarily at Piety Street in New Orleans, and including Jambona Lab in Italy to incorporate for the accompaniment of guitarist/mentor Luti – Everlasting Arms marks the rise of a new American songwriter and a group that sets a fresh standard for compositional range and dynamic atmospheric variety.

Everlasting Arms mc
Everlasting Arms zippy

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