The Wizard / Blues For We

 
The Wizard / Blues For We cover
$17.00 Special Order
3 - 6 weeks
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Mel Brown
The Wizard / Blues For We

[ Verve / CD ]

Release Date: Monday 10 October 2011

This item is only available to us via Special Order. We should be able to get it to you in 3 - 6 weeks from when you order it.

This remastered two-fer combines guitarist Mel Brown's second Impulse release from 1968, The Wizard, with Blues for We released the following year. The Wizard is a straight-ahead soul-jazz date picking up where Chicken Fat left off with a few originals alongside funky renditions of "Ode to Billie Joe" and Pee Wee Crayton's R&B hit of the late '40s "Blues After Hours." Blues for We relies more on an interesting selection of cover versions ranging from "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" and "Son of a Preacher Man" to the bubblegum staple by the 1910 Fruitgum Company "Indian Giver" and Acker Bilk's "Stranger on the Shore," which was the theme of a BBC television drama. Brown's guitar work on both sessions is fluid and greasy, as are the funky drum licks, but occasionally, the arrangements drift into superior background music.