| Blues Traveler | 1990 |
| Travelers & Thieves | 1991 |
| Save His Soul | 1993 |
| Four | 1994 |
| Live From The Fall | 1996 |
| Straight On Till Morning | 1997 |
Along with Phish and Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler are one of the top "live jam bands" of the 90s, with their greatest strength being the technically powerful harmonica work of lead singer John Popper. Their self-titled debut yielded a hit in "But Anyway", but until their fourth album, Four (the only one I own), they were still relatively unknown until the opening title track from that album "Runaround" became a radio standard around that time, along with "Hook". That's about all I have knowledge of for that band, so on to my Four review.
--Nick Karn
Post your comments about Blues Traveler
(reviewed by Nick Karn)
More radio-oriented than previous efforts, Blues Traveler's fourth album has fairly strong songwriting with nice hooks, and the often tongue-in-cheek lyrics is also an asset to the band here, along with the obvious strength of John Popper's harmonica to carry the album. Chan Kinchla's guitar work also is capable of picking things up when the album gets a bit uninteresting. It usually doesn't, though, as there are a few solid highlights -- the above mentioned singles "Runaround" and "Hook" (both with great "adrenaline rushing" rhymes by Popper near the end of them), the more relaxing and uplifting "The Mountains Win Again", the furious jamming of "Crash Burn", the unpredictable song structure of "Stand", the ballads with exceptional emotional qualities in "Look Around" and "Just Wait" (led by very well-done piano and acoustic guitar, respectively). Overall, it's a very worthwhile debut that serves as a nice listen once in awhile, and actually has more great songs than I originally remembered.
Post your comments / reviews for this album