Live, the four BLUES People command the room: a wall of sound pushing out on you from the stage.
Certainly, Mike Griot’s bassline is a major shover. But frontman Kelton Cooper’s holler is no less guilty when venting steam above the fray without any sign of vocal strain. To boot, not only does his intense guitar second those emotions but then magnifies them with bends, stabs, slashes and extra-tense solos. Ron Thompson’s keyboards? Oh, it more than holds its own among all this muscle flexing, ready to dish vigorous turbulence or inversely quell storms with warm chords. And the sharp snap from Gene Lake’s drums keeps everyone in line; keeps them bonded; keeps the locomotive on time.
Well, that same experience punches out from your speakers in the form of The Skin I’m In. Although recorded in a studio, the set—which doubles as their all-original debut record—radiates a vibrant sense of unfurling before you in a club, as if live. “Blues Interlude,” albeit less than 30 seconds, feeds into that vibe all the more with ambient sounds of a clapping, cheering audience and the band’s response. “Nuthin’ Really” could then serve as a sort of post-show, backstage cooldown. The freeform track honors its title, as conversation is overheard casually ranging from the great running back Terry Metcalf to Sunday pancakes, all while floating along on an oh-so-cool vamp continually flowing underneath. Another layer of you-are-there atmosphere.
But when that full-on venting kicks into gear, “Amnesia” is the first to turns heads. Its agony inches along as a slow blues grappling with a withering relationship on its last legs. Cooper himself, though, is anything but faint. Two outlets are needed, in fact, to air out the situational frustration: His gutty, strong, riled voice lets loose as his guitar’s vertical attack keeps sending up moonshot after string-bent moonshot to drive home the point. And just like that, The Skin I’m In instantly has your full attention.
“I Was Always There” is no better off emotionally. Yet, of the pair of songs saddled with sinking personal prospects, this one hustles. The crisp, galloping shuffle eventually works up the whole band to the point of shouting out the chorus above the bass and drums’ united stomp, as if tacking extra exclamation points onto the title’s claim.
With head likewise hung low (except for larger-scale reasons), “Troubled Times” tries eking out a sliver of hope from a hopeless world. The tone is somber and hushed; the delivery is the smoothest of the bunch. And another six-string soliloquy gets custom-tailored to fit the mood at hand: this time, eloquently distraught. Eloquently distraught hardened-steel.
Seasoned topics, indeed, from a seasoned group. Because having pulled members together from across individual histories (stretched from working with Sue Foley to Kool & the Gang to Joanne Shaw Taylor to Boz Scaggs to South Africa’s brassy groove king Hugh Masekela), BLUES People is in no way a tenderfoot band.
Nor are they a tight-lipped band. The Skin I’m In freely speaks its peace, not holding back, not biting its dragon tongue. The title track, flooding out with a funky shimmy that burns off during each of the increasingly blistered guitar solos, is among a clutch of topical songs building upon the tradition of forerunners who laid it on the line. Such as Michael Hill’s Blues Mob (in which Griot was once a member), who emerged from the Bronx in the 1990s, making their energized case by way of Have Mercy!, New York State of Blues and such. Or, you could historically reach further back to when high-pitched Chicago bluesman J.B. Lenoir aired grievances 30 years before them. Regardless, BLUES People—with metro ties to Orange, New Jersey—do not go quiet into that good night.
But they do go mightily—as well as dauntlessly—en route to the Blues Foundation’s 2025 International Blues Challenge in Memphis for a series of good nights (January 7-11), representing the North Jersey Blues Society in the band competition.
Label: BLUES People (self-released)
Release Date: 1/16/24
Artist Website: bluespeoplenj.com
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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