| CD REVIEW (This review was also published at www.701.com) |
| Recorded live in The Sky Church at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Mr. Cooper's third CD, all originals, starts out with "Love the Life You're Livin'", which sounds remarkably similar to John Lee Hooker's "Goin' Upstairs", a tune which is covered quite frequently by Ottawa slide guitarist Paul Fenton at his live shows. To be fair, though, Henry does elaborate a lot more on the underlying rhythm, but the similarity is there just the same, especially since both players use open tuning but in different keys. Mr. Cooper, a former harmonica player, has discovered, like Paul, that the slide guitar is very compatible accompanied with a Hammond B-3, played very eloquently here by Ed Vance. The dynamics of Ed's playing are evident throughout the CD, but especially on the slow-blues, "After All", with Henry's absolutely angst-ridden slide guitar. The ensemble is kept to a basic, no-nonsense, quartet with the steady rockin' beat of Dave Jette on drums and Keith Lowe on bass. "Baby, Please" is a slide-screamin' barrel-house rocker dismissing any notions of further romance with a former lover, which caught my attention with the lyrics, "Baby, please, baby, please, don't act so sad; I know that's what you're doing, 'cuz your actin's really bad." This theme literally says it all, as the song is pretty well an instrumental otherwise. There are not really a whole lot of vocals on the CD at all but, where present, Mr. Cooper manages to come out sounding like a suave version of Jerry Lee Lewis (without the yodel). "King Me", a term used in playing checkers and maybe a double-entendre as well, is strictly instrumental but here I found the Hammond to be a bit too shrill and detrimental to the "rocking" nature of the piece. "No Way" slows things down a bit but still has a nicely sensual strut going on, vocally and instrumentally. The Hammond works really well on this track about a two-timing woman and the main man trying his best to please her. Keith Lowe gets a chance to excel on bass on this track especially. In fact, the CD itself is an excellent piece of production, thanks to Mr. Cooper himself. Recording duties for all tracks except "Automatic Trouble" were handled by Chris Wehba. The title track was recorded separately at the Liquid Lounge at the Experience Music Project. "Sittin' on It", a frantically-paced shuffle similar to Toronto guitarist Dylan Wickens' "Red Dress" (Shuffle This), was performed "for the kids over there in the beer gardens". "Don't Want to Move" makes a catchy anthem for the men out there who plead not to be dragged out on the dance floor. Just when I thought it was going on a bit too long, the intros to the band and thanks to the audience were made. Something I don't understand, though, is why the "live" element is removed from this type of recording, thereby negating the existence of any audience in the first place. "Automatic Trouble", the title track, wraps up the CD very nicely, with Henry Cooper (on a stratocaster, I believe) and his gang on this real swinger, which brought the vocal and playing style of Hamilton's Jack de Keyzer to mind. If you can't get to Seattle to check out this nominee in the Washington Blues Society Best of the Blues (BB) Awards, he will be playing in Vancouver (which apparently has been "adopted" by Washington if you check out his website listings) at the Cascade Tavern on May 5 and May 25/02. You'll be in for a real treat! |
| AUTOMATIC TROUBLE - HENRY COOPER |
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