Stale Smoke and Cheap Whiskey
My friend, Jimmy Pettit, is an excellent bass guitarist. He currently tours with the Joe Ely Flatlanders band and has appeared on the Dave Letterman show as well as participated in a concert with the Flatlanders at Cargneige Hall in New York City
My friend, Jimmy Pettit, is an excellent bass guitarist. He currently tours with the Joe Ely Flatlanders band and has appeared on the Dave Letterman show as well as participated in a concert with the Flatlanders at Cargneige Hall in New York City
He has an album out entitled VEGAS HOTEL.
Here is a review Jimmy posted on FaceBook about
his album.
”My old friend Cree McCree
wrote this lovely review of my record,,,,Jimmy Pettit, Vegas Hotel
There’s no
vacancy at the Vegas Hotel, a seedy bordertown flophouse where the shades of
bluesmen past linger in the air like stale smoke and the smell of cheap
whiskey.
The mighty ghost of Howlin’ Wolf stalks the killing floor, stomping
primordial beats that crack the ceiling in the room below, where the spirit
of Captain Beefheart laughs maniacally as he conjures whirling dervishes out
of the Delta dust. And down at the far end of the hall, a National Steel
guitar snakes around the corner and unleashes the hellhounds, heralding the
spectral presence of the late John Campbell.
Welcome to the world of Jimmy
Pettit, longtime bass player for the John Campbell Band, who steps up to the
mic on his first solo album to pay tribute to his heroes and rail against a
world gone mad.
On “Last of the Primitives,” aided and abetted by his old bandmate
and co-writer Zonder Kennedy – one of the down-and-dirtiest slide living
slide guitarists -- Pettit lashes out at Jimmy Swaggart-style tyrants and
their incessant “talking and talking and talking about Jesus” in a cracked,
croaky voice that burbles up from the bottom of a swamp.
“La Llarona” is a
wrenching lament for a Mexican mother “crying for the child who never made it
to the other side.” Though penned before the current GOP frenzy of
immigrant-bashing, it flies in the face of scaremongers like Donald Trump
whose idea of border protection is a fortified Berlin-style wall.
Elsewhere,
Pettit explores the many faces and facets of the blues. He goes to the
“Voodoo Edge” with John Campbell in a song co-written by Campbell and
Kennedy, which he recorded and played live hundred of times with the band.
While his propulsive bass line still drives “Edge,” he makes the song his own
on Vegas Hotel with sinuous djembe syncopation and a gravelly voice dipped in
acid.
Chester Burnett’s “Commit a Crime” slinks in with a snaky guitar line
by Phil Anstrom, while Pettit’s bass turns menacing on his own “Wolf In
Sheep’s Clothing” in homage to the biggest, baddest Wolf of all.
“Whatever
happened to the blues?” Pettit asks on the centerpiece of the CD, his own
“Portfolio Blues.” It’s alive and well and residing in the Vegas Hotel, which
rocks like a backwoods juke juke on the wrong side of the tracks. Jimmy
Pettit is throwing a big ol’ house party in a graveyard, and like the man
says:
“Tonight I’m gonna party like it’s 1929!”
Amen, brother. I’m down with
that.”
|
I have the album
and it is quite good.
Update 2 Novemeber. The album is now available on Amazon at this link.
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Update 2 Novemeber. The album is now available on Amazon at this link.
The album is also available on ITunes.
If you are
interested you can also buy it direct from the publisher at
