With arrangements the majority of which are Peterson’s own and a band featuring the titanic drums of Raul Valdes well captured in this Dallas studio album made last June, the ‘listening’ bass guitar of Timothy Waites, and lively soulful guitar of Shawn Kellerman (who also had a hand in the arranging of Arlester Christian’s infectious ‘Funky Broadway’ found back in the day making its way on to Wilson Pickett’s 1967 Atlantic album The Sound of Wilson Pickett), The Son of a Bluesman is about renewal: dusting yourself down and getting on with life. Original compositions ‘Nana Jarnell’, with some of the best guitar playing on the whole album on this sensitive Bobby Blue Bland-styled song, ‘Boogie-Woogie Blues Joint Party’, the regretful but stoic ‘I’m Still Here’, tender but tough autobiographical title track ‘The Son of a Bluesman’, ‘You Lucky Dog’, and a cover of Bobby Blue’s ‘I Pity the Fool’ from Two Steps From the Blues arranged like a Ray Charles record with a great opening thump to it, the words tumbling out of Lucky's mouth, just some of the many treasures here. Peterson in an extensive career to date has chalked up recording and performance credits with Albert Collins, BB King, and Mavis Staples among others and yet he doesn’t even turn 50 until later this year. The horn section here when it surfaces bristles with talent, the ‘I Pity the Fool’ and ‘You Lucky Dog’ tracks the big songs in this regard. There’s a fantastic, distant, boogie-woogie piano opening to the driving dance number ‘Boogie-Woogie Blues Joint Party’, Lucky cackling away. Let the good times roll. SG
Out now