Feel So Good (CD - 2008)

Audio Mixer: Blaise Barton.

The endless boogie begun by John Lee Hooker, then Texas-honed by ZZ Top, continues, thanks to the younger generation of blues players such as Albert Cummings. This Massachusetts guitarist/singer is no purist, freely mixing nightclub blues with aspects of 1970s rock (Hendrix or Robin Trower), sometimes recalling the more boisterous side of the late Stevie Ray Vaughn. His guitar sizzles, sputters, and roars, and his voice has the gutsy vibrancy of Paul Rodgers and Buddy Guy. While not earth-shakingly original, FEELS SO GOOD is the CD equivalent of a good-time late Saturday night.

New England's Albert Cummings has been hailed as the next Stevie Ray Vaughan, and certainly Cummings' explosive, soulful, and emotional guitar style adds credence to that claim, but Cummings, a carpenter from Williamston, MA, has a completely different blues approach, tackling themes that would be familiar to any working stiff trying to support a family in an uncertain economy, sounding in this live set like a man who is more than glad that the weekend is here and he finally gets to make some noise. In this context, Cummings' blazing guitar breaks function as deliverance. Recorded in March of 2008 at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, MA before an enthusiastic hometown crowd, Feel So Good gives a glimpse of Cummings in his natural setting, and this is a straight-ahead rocking show that opens with the Friday night anthem "Party Right Here" and just keeps rolling from there. Locked in tight with drummer Aaron Scapin and bassist Daniel Broad, Cummings plays a hot hand on his Fender Strat as he tears through fine versions of B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby" and Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll," slowing things down a bit for a beautifully sung version of his own "Together as One." Live albums are often holding patterns for recording artists, and this one has that feel, but Cummings is such a down-home player and singer, and performing live on-stage is so obviously his sweet point, that Feel So Good seems like a perfectly natural career move. It sounds like it was one hell of a party that night, and in the end, that's how Cummings approaches the blues, by using it to catch a little bit of freedom and running off into the night with it, understanding that the blues is really all about the need for joy. ~ Steve Leggett minimize