Blue Again Review

[OldTimer]

Here's another Blue Again review, from the Chicago Sun-Times site:


BLUES-ROCK | Mick Fleetwood Blues Band, "Blue Again" (429i) There were three different Fleetwood Macs, plus various revival efforts. The first, co-founded in 1967 by drummer Mick Fleetwood, was a British blues-rock outfit with an uncanny knack for aping American originators and a guitarist, Peter Green, who had a tone and virtuosity that have never been duplicated. When Green and fellow axman Jeremy Spencer burned out, the band soldiered on in a more experimental vein. Then came the megamillion-selling group that I called Buckingham-Nicks because it bore little resemblance to the earlier incarnations.

Now drummer-bandleader Fleetwood is honoring the first -- and best -- Mac (sort of a 42nd anniversary celebration) with a new blues band fronted by guitarist-vocalist Rick Vito, who supplied the slide work on Bob Seger's "Like a Rock," backed Bonnie Raitt for many years and was in Fleetwood Mac from 1987-91. On "Blue Again," a live album recorded in February 2008 at the Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis, Vito proves a competent Green imitator-interpreter. The album contains several Green showcases, including "Rattlesnake Shake," "Stop Messin' Around," "Black Magic Woman" (no, Santana didn't create its megahit) and "Albatross," the hauntingly beautiful instrumental that was once ubiquitous on FM radio.

There's every reason to trash a project like this, sight unseen: It's artistically suspect, it can't be as good as the original, and what's the point? But these songs are enduring, and Fleetwood has assembled a quartet that, while a pale imitation of Mac No. 1, is better than most groups working today -- including the high-rent, low-inspiration Fleetwood Mac.

Jeff Johnson

http://www.suntimes.com/entertainmen...pins22.article