Toms Memphis Rocking Blues

Bruce Von Stiers

Bill Toms played lead guitar with a Pittsburg area band for a couple of decades. The band was Joe Grushecky & The Houserockers. The band shared the stage with notables like Stevie Ray Vaughn and Bruce Springsteen. The band even had Springsteen produce one of their albums.

But as time went by, Bill decided to strike out on his own. In addition to his work with the band, Bill recorded several of his own albums.

Now Bill has a brand new album out. This one is chock full of rocking blues music. The very appropriate title for the album is Memphis . It is being released on the Terraplane Records label.

Bill plays guitar on the album along with doing the lead vocals. Will Kimbrough plays guitar, bass, mandolin, harmonica and provides backing vocals. Tom Breiding also plays guitar and does backing vocals. “Sudden” Steve Binsberger plays piano and organ for the album. Phil Brontz is on tenor and bari sax and does backing vocals on a song. Tom Valentine is on bass and Bernie Herr is the drummer. Mark Cholewski is on guitar for two songs and Marc Reisman plays harmonica on a couple of songs too. David Henry provided string arrangements and performance for one song. And Rick Witkowski provided some backing vocals too.

The album was produced by Will Kimbrough and recorded and mixed by Rick Witkowski. All of the songs except one were written by Bill.

One of the first songs on the album is Colleen, Goodbye. It is a mild, semi-gravel vocalized love lament.

That is followed by a fun little blues piece with great slivers of sax called Misery.

On The Road of Freedom has a mellow, almost light southern rock sound to it, with a tiny bit of Springsteen thrown in.

Somebody Help Me is a light toe tapper with guitar a bit like a Clapton tune.

Waiting On the Pain has some too cool sax, keys and harmonica wrapped up in slick blues rock packaging.

Slowing things down is a sad ballad called I'm Getting Closer.

Tear This Old House Down is a soft and gentle ballad. This is the song that has string music in it.

Then there is the moving and grooving rock blues song Lord, Don't Take Me Now.

Tom slows thing back down again with a light guitar and harmonica based song called Hold On.

Another slow ballad is I've Made Peace Now. This one has a strong piano background for aching vocals.

Tom closes things out with a rollicking tune called Let's Make A Better World.

The song that I liked best on the album was the first one, I Won't Go To Memphis No More. Throaty vocals and too cool blues rock music make this a really cool song. The piano music smokes and the sax and guitar slide in to add fuel to the fire.

Sometimes I'll listen to a blues/ rock album and wonder why I bothered. Other times I can't wait to hear the album again. Bill Toms album Memphis fits into that second category. I listened to the album and then just had to listen to again. I especially liked Waiting On The Pain and a couple of the other songs.

Memphis hits the streets on September 12 th .

In the meantime, you can check out a few songs from the album and samples from Bill's earlier work on his web site. That site can be found at www.billtoms.com .

 

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© 2011 Bruce E Von Stiers