Shot Clean Through With The Blues     band:   Billy Jenkins & The Blues Collective     Album: sadtimes.co.uk     "Now Blues has a defined musical form, mostly based on the root, fourth and fifth note of the Western scale and of course the twelve bar. It is a universal blueprint, a safety net for the listener. They know what's roughly going to happen next. And therefore, with this pattern in place, the musician can go completely nuts, go ape, go primitive. Talk in tongues, become possessed..." ~ Billy Jenkins "I doubt if Blues clubs will want the Blues Collective. They'll think I'm taking the piss - like some factions in the jazz world think the Voice of God does. Well I ain't - and I don't mean anyone any harm either." ~ Billy Jenkins BILLY JENKINS AND THE BLUES COLLECTIVE BILLY JENKINS: You can dye your hair white, you can wear a white shirt out your pants and a vintage thin tie, and learn to fake the mad ass punk preacher of an attitude, but you can't play yer guitar like Billy Jenkins, so stick with the hipster outfit and slug through your chord charts, because Jenkins and Blues Collective will break you heart. Billy Jenkins has been called "the great unrecognized genius of South London" in the Sunday Times. Billy had chops when you was a child, and he has consumed a cocktail of Frank Zappa, Velvet Underground and Sonny Rollins that drove him plumb crazy like a fox. If you haven't heard of him, you are watching too damn much TV. Get off your ass and let the Blues Collective take you to school. It's about f*@cking time you heard this living master. DYLAN BATES: Alright, so you've probably heard Jean-Luc Ponte, and you know that a violin can rock. This electric and acoustic violin young turk has slammed all the novelty out of his fiddle with the sledge hammer of pure taste, and turned it into a bona fide jazz and blues instrument, with a touch of country when he's feeling frisky, and a scorched earth explosion of power rock and blues that will scare the neighbors and send the cat into the cabinet to hide. And he looks respectful while he's doing all that. RICHARD BOLTON is listed as "rhythm guitar" on this CD, but his blues solos on the Gibson can cut through to the core with a B.B. shot from his loaded six string. He owns the stage on the Blues Collective DVD "Blues Al Fresco" for a few minutes, while Billy christens a fallen fiddle player, felled by a careless banana peel. This CD he's chopping wood with the best of them, and pounding out the clusters at the back of the Ultimate Chord Book. THAD KELLY keeps the blues train from slipping off the tracks with a Precision that has earned its name. He doesn't showboat on this CD, but if you can settle for just right tasteful bottom, he will fit the bill. If you can play what he does on this CD, I wouldn't challenge him to a cutting contest just yet. You might end up doing a Pete Townsend on your ax, and getting a job at the Post Office out of shame. MIKE PICKERING can mark time with the best of them, when things get a little crazy on the six string, or sit back and play the brushes if that's what a song like the title cut "sadtimes.co.uk" requires, but there is enough restrained energy in the quiet moments from the "drumkit" to keep you on your toes. He can kick the band with the brushes, and kick your ass with a drumstick, and knows how to wear a suit on stage without looking like it's just for show. THE SONGS: BADLANDS: Billy turns up the echoplex now and again on this dark Badlands ballad, but pretty much shoots out the lights and breaks a few shop windows with his six string attack on the broken marketplace of the current street scene. Lyrics: "Badlands - Shuttered shops that never close - Badlands Where a facial is a broken nose - Graffiti on the wall - Improves the boarded shopping mall - Badlands - Just down the road from you." Richard bangs out a warning bell under all the explosive Billy blues, and Dylan ties his fiddle with a bow to the assault weapon six string. There's beauty in the devastation of the broken shopping mall, and Billy burns it down with pure music. Billy's singing voice is a mischievous thing, that sounds like a dark angel after a dying fall. CLIFF RICHARD SP0KE TO ME is a blues with a sweet tone, that builds into a fanatic intensity that hides the deepest respect for a "top pop sensation" under a blanket of sycophantic insanity. This cut swings slow like Count Basie's band, with all the intensity of a tweaked out Alvin Lee goin' home with Ten Years After. The violin is acoustic with a country blues fiberglass bow set on stun, with a gliss of pure bliss on a manic weekend. Billy has the haphazard sound of a cat on the piano keys, if the feline studied from Cecil Taylor and intends every cluster he claws. I just love the story of this song! My brushes with greatness include emails with Billy Jenkins. For Billy, song be true, was a moment with Cliff. Here's the last verse: It's So Funny We Don't Talk Anymore Wished we could talk some more You wanna hear what he said!? Cliff Richard Spoke To Me Cliff Richard Spoke To Me Cliff Richard Spoke To Me He said 'Hi!' He said - 'Hi!' He said - 'Hi!' He said - 'Hi!' REST ON MY BED begins with an insistent march time, interrupted with a hint of guitar. The violin breaks in with a little two string country touch of restrained melody. "Rain comes down - cold wind blows - no reason to go out - lying still - on my own - full of fear and doubt - ain't got dressed - ain't had a shave - life's my mistress - I'm her slave - there ain't nothing I can do - I'm - resting on my bed of blues." Those lyrics don't suck at all. And Billy can't be restrained for long. That "bet you don't think I intend all these notes" assault guitar technique pops the cherry on a lazy day, and Mr. Violin Dude keeps up an increasing country stomp with a little horror movie special effect done without an electronic box worth mentioning. Have a nice day! SADTIMES.CO.UK is that slow deliberate down home sparsely adorned blues you've been hoping for, for a bad day even when it is not night and it is not raining. The lyrics: "Sadness sadness sadness - sad times is my life - been together so many years - sad times became my wife - since the first night of our honeymoon - we've been alone together in the gloom - sadness sadness sadness - sad times is my life - you hear what I say - I'm on - sadtimes.co.uk [pronounced "sadtimes dot co DOT you kay]" The brushes take the drumkit, a sweet Gibson guitar tone replaces the "Vlad the Impaler" quality heard elsewhere, Mr. Bolton switches to a tasteful Freddie Green chunk-a-chunk on the rhythm guitar, and that fiddle takes a dying fall on an acoustic diving board, for the sound of tough luck and "trouble, trouble, trouble like you ain't never seen." Sweet! I'M HAPPY wakes up a sleeping Django Reinhardt shuffle still shaking off the sand man. This is a lazy blues romp with gratitude that Billy don't need the HRT. Now that could mean the Hampton Roads Transit, but it might be Hormone Replacement Therapy, truth be told. All that "Happy as can be!" falls a little flat, but at least Billy is frisky enough he don't need any "ecstacy" or "LSD." His sponsor will be happy to hear that! The clincher: "I'm so happy I could cry. I'm so happy I could die." There's an S&M reference here, but I ain't telling nothin'. Get the damn record. THE DUKE AND ME starts with a "doo wah doo wah doo wah ditty ditty" of a beat, at a relaxed tempo. "Cool jazz" is on the juke, and Billy's got "the Duke and me and Harry Carney - And I just can't get enough." Alright, he's having a spacey jazzy day where "Mary Jane is smokin'" but he "ain't got no pop music - none of the children's stuff." (Harry Carney, by the way, is credited with making the baritone-saxophone a "necessary" instrument for a big band. Look him up!) Once again Billy seems to be working out the solos for the first time, in fits and starts, but that ain't the truth. Try it for yourself. He don't miss a note, just pretending not to know, or not to care, but he's one cagey dude on that thing. A tip of the hat to the Richard Bolton on the rhythm thing for holding down the six string groove. This thing swings. I LOVE YOUR SMELL is the scent of a woman set to a slick walking blues. "I Love Your Smell - Makes me well - I never miss - A little sniff - When you're near - When you're near." The twang bar gets a workout and Billy goes rhythm after the usual attack guitar assault. The fiddle makes brief side comments, and Richard on rhythm has found his wah wah peddle for the occasion. There's enough "guitar falling down the stairs" intensity to hide the fact that every damn note he plays is intentional. Gosh, don't you smell nice! I think maybe Billy's eyesight is fading with the old age. You have to use the senses you have left. LIKE JOHN LEE SAID breaks in a frightening pace with impressive drumkit rolls and accents beating the devil out of the damn thing. The pace here might be Alvin Lee, but my best guess is John Lee Hooker. The big surprise here is a children's shout chorus from local middle school. Billy has a "take no prisoners" attitude even at this double time pace. Okay, it's a John Lee Hooker thing for sure. How do I know? It's in the lyrics! Another tribute song. I'm beginning to think this madman Billy gives more respect than anybody, and damn straight get's less than he deserves. Hey, Hooker! Listen to this shit! Who loves you, baby! Blues is a feeling from top to toe it's so appealing when that melancholy air comes wheezing IT'S OUT OF SIGHT I GOT DYNAMITE! I GOT DYNAMITE! Light up the night ! Fight the good fight! With all our might! Like John Lee said BOOM BOOM! BOOM BOOM! BOOM BOOM-BOOM BOOM-BOOM-BOOM BOOM! THE BLUES COLLECTIVE: Billy Jenkins: Guitar and Vocals Dylan Bates: Electric (and acoustic?) Violin Richard Bolton: Rhythm Guitar Thad Kelly: Bass Mike Pickering: Drumkit Hear Billy Jenkins' music at the following sites: http://www.myspace.com/billyjenkins http://www.myspace.com/billyjenkinssongsofpraise http://www.songsofpraise.org.uk http://www.billyjenkins.com   [ home ] [ reviews ] [ blogs ] [ quotes ] [ shop ] [ contact ] Copyright © 2006-2010 Billys Bunker

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