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Pete Feenstra chatted to Rocky Athas for his show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio, playing tracks from the album ‘Living My Best Life’. First broadcast 12 May 2024.
Cherryburst Records [Release date 10.03.24]
‘Living My Best Life’ is Rocky Athas’s first solo album for 7 years, and from his opening sustained notes on the title track, it’s like he’s never been away.
The former John Mayall, Black Oak Arkansas, Buddy Miles, Glenn Hughes and Lightning guitarist (who also played with Double Trouble), is backed by a locked-in cross generational band.
Rocky is joined by Walter Watson on vocals and drums and respective sons, Rocky Athas 11 on bass, and Jared Watson on second guitar and harmony vocals.
It’s an intuitive road tested line-up with familial musical genes which fully contributes to inventive arrangements and a melodic approach that gives Athas his imposing sound.
All 10 tracks showcase his versatility and career influences through his personalised vibrato and a wide tonal array, with occasional hints of distortion and deft use of wah-wah.
His tones are the building blocks of an album full of different rock-blues styles, explored over well written originals and carefully chosen covers.
In fact the core of the album is based round the way he cleverly incorporates a number of significant guitar influences into his own material.
He rocks out on the ZZ Top influenced title track, which as the lyrics suggest, evokes “forward movement”.
He employs the kind of rich tone and fluid playing that has been his forte down the years and fattens the tracks with double tracked vocals on the hook.
Rocky then opts for a more piercing tone and acoustic chords on the pounding tom-toms of ‘In My Dreams’. It opens into a lush sounding sonic landscape of sumptuous slide, subtle percussion and cool harmony vocals, leading to a definitive solo.
He proudly wears his influences on his sleeve. There’s a big Leslie West style tone on the majestic boogie shuffle of ‘Dark Days’, on which everything is about the tone and a tension breaking solo.
He opens the Gary Moore influenced blues ballad ‘Sad Affairs’ with a clean tone, before moving to slight distortion and occasional pinched harmonics for emphasis, which he tops with an expressive warm conversational solo.
Then there’s an ode to Paul Kossoff and a Trower influenced wah-wah on Free’s ‘Walk In My Shadow’, which transforms the original to a slightly faster, more fluid Rocky Athas style attack.
Rocky’s solo career has always had to deal with the fact he doesn’t sing, which has led drummer Walter Watson filling the void left by the late Larry Samford.
Watson’s vocal versatility is evidenced on the cover of Dylan’s ‘Watching The River Flow’, on which he sounds like an enthusiastic Mick Jagger, while he’s at his best on a rip roaring version of Don Nix’s ‘Black Cat Moan’.
The latter is a song Rocky played in his younger days with Black Oak Arkansas. Here he attacks it aggressively with trademark riffs and wah wah flurries to evoke Jeff Beck (another influence), while his band gives him great support on organ, bv’s and Watson’s impressive vocal.
‘Living My Best Life’ has a cool sense of dynamics, and musical contrast, while his varied guitar style gives the 10 tracks real flow from beginning to end.
There’s a nod to Peter Green on ‘Long Grey Mare’ on which his former employer John Mayall contributes feverish harp, and then he changes direction again on the bass heavy and a subtly distorted tone of a sultry Latino groove called ‘Solid Ground’.
A lovely blend of a sinewy guitar tone with keyboards and percussion, complete with a double guitar line outro is an exemplar of the quality of this album.
It may be a musical departure, but it acts a timely reminder of his adventurous musical spirit.
He saves his final homage to one of his favourite guitarists Freddie King, on the oft covered Leon Russell/Don Nix co-write ‘Palace of The King’.
It’s given a tough arrangement on which he solos with real intensity leading to a breathless stop-time finish.
You sense that Rocky makes no apologies for this being an old school guitar driven album, as it’s a perfect reminder of what long time fans have been missing.
And in the spirit of the album title, it also looks forward, in delivering an essential calling card to new fans, who will discover one of Texas’s most durable guitar talents. ****
Review by Pete Feenstra
Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK
Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions, streamed via Facebook.
In 2023 he signed a recording deal with Sony in Canada and released a new single on 15 September.
Latest session: SUNDAY 26 MAY
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David Randall presents a weekly show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio, Sundays at 22:00 GMT, repeated on Mondays and Fridays), when he invites listeners to ‘Assume The Position’. The show signposts forthcoming gigs and tours and latest additions at getreadytorock.com. First broadcast on 9 June 2024.
UK Blues Broadcaster of the Year (2020 and 2021 Finalist) Pete Feenstra presents his weekly Rock & Blues Show on Tuesday at 19:00 GMT as part of a five hour blues rock marathon “Tuesday is Bluesday at GRTR!”. The show is repeated on Wednesdays at 22:00, Fridays at 20:00). This show was first broadcast 11 June 2024.
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Power Plays w/c 10 June 2024
BASTION ROSE (Epictronic Records)
VOODOO RAMBLE Midnight Ride (indie)
BYWATER CALL As If (indie)
ESCAPE THE PARADIGM Cold (Curtain Call Records)
DEFENCES Gold In The Dark (indie)
BRAVE RIVAL Fairytale (indie)
MOJO ACES Old Crow (indie)
Featured Albums w/c 10 June 2024
09:00-12:00 NESTOR Teenage Rebel (Napalm Records)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2023
14:00-16:00 MIRACLE MILE East Of Ely (indie)
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