Song by Song Review: The Bo-Keys’ Got to Get Back

Only in Memphis, TN can anyone, from Germany to Japan, come to get this stuff on them when they hear this sound. It’s the sound of the city. All races blind to skin color, conversing freely through the medium of the love of music. And The Bo-Keys have NAILED IT with Got to Get Back★★★★½

Available in vinyl and/or CD provides an assortment that I believe is becoming the norm.

1. “Hi Roller”
Coming out of the gate hard and heavy with a powerful horn section, composed (off and on) of Ben Cauley and Mark Franklin on trumpet, and Jim Spake, Floyd Newman, Kurt Smothers and Derek Williams on the “sax army,” each steeped in that Memphis Brew, and answered by the organ brings on a melody that is Music Classics 101. Mr. Skip Pitts’ guitar shining through right at the point where a listener wants something new shows you how much in tune with that listener the band really is. “Hi Roller” is BoKeys’ “Love at first listen.”

2. “Got To Get Back (To My Baby)” Featuring Otis Clay
If you have never had the spine-tingling experience of hearing Mr. Otis Clay sing, AND you like music, you simply have not lived. Your eyes will be opened and your senses filled with the life of a true soul/bluesman. And in this setting, it is a culmination of heart-felt vision, The BoKeys go together with this man like mud and dirt. That gnarly Skip Pitts’guitar just adds that much more of the “thang.” Yet it all comes together with the glue from the gods to make this a hit if I’ve ever heard one. Super tight horns, that funk on the rhythm, and Otis can still make a hit record.

[Read more...]