CD REVIEW: Leo Welch - "Sabougla Voices"

Leo Welch - Sabougla Voices
Release Date: January 7, 2014                                 

Rating: 4.5 / 5 Stars

Label: Fat Possum Records/Big Legal Mess

Gospel Blues Debut Album by 81 year old Mississippian Leo Welch. The story of his discovery is amazing. The music is special. The album is one of this year’s best, among all genre's, exceeding all expectations.

The phone rings at the Oxford, Miss.-based label Big Legal Mess. An intern tells the caller, “Oh, we don’t really do blues here anymore.” One of the company’s principals overhears this and grabs the phone. On the other end of the line is one 81-year-old Leo “Bud” Welch from Mississippi’s Calhoun County. He’d heard about the label that brought you Junior Kimbrough’s First Recordings, Jack Oblivian, Reverend John Wilkins, Water Lairs and Bishop Manning and the Manning Family, and he wanted to know if there’d be interest in recording his debut album of downhome gospel and blues. It was then that Big Legal Mess’s Bruce Watson invited him to come to the office and play a few tunes. He was signed on the spot…as the story has it.

Even after further research into Gospel, I'll be the first to say, my roots are not in Gospel. I've been touched by Gospel singers and music, but not brought up with it. However, my roots are indeed in soul. No I'm not referring to soul music, but the human soul. Leo Welch's Sabougla Voices touched my soul.

This album is authentic, sincere, and poetic. Lyrically he speaks everything you would expect to hear in a church. Musically, well I guess you'd expect to hear it in a church too, but let me tie this into modern music. I see Leo Welch finding a home in today's music space and playing to all ages including the "hipsters.” Musically, Track #1 "Praise His Name" hooked me immediately with its rock n' roll blues vibes and #7 "Somebody Touched Me" is a dancy gospel jam with sweet and sincere female backing harmonies. 

I put this in between Worldly African artist Bombino, blind Mali couple Amadou and Mariam, and gospel feel of Mavis Staples (yes I know they are different genders; that's not the point though, it's a musical comparison). I hear Dan Auerbach's guitar riffs layered in there. They aren't, but they could be.

This album is perfect for fans of Blues, Gospel, Americana, Rock n’ Roll, World music, and Soul...both Soul's...your soul and soul music. He closes the album with "The Lord Will Make A Way". It sums up the album. A miracle brought Leo Welch and Fat Possum together 81 years later, and we get to feel it!

~ Michael Ari

BUY at: http://www.amazon.com/Sabougla-Voices-Leo-Welch/dp/B00GHO302S
http://www.fatpossum.com
http://biglegalmessrecords.com/leo-welch-sabougla-voices-out-january-7th/

Music Review: The Satin Chaps, ‘Might I Suggest The Satin Chaps?’

 

By APRIL?LINE - Sun-Gazette Correspondent , Williamsport Sun-Gazette

 

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Pure energy weaves itself through every track on The Satin Chaps's first release, "Might I Suggest The Satin Chaps?" It's fun and infectious and it smacks of parody. Indeed, bassist and percussionist Eric Hedford said, "We dig dance party music: '60s go-go combined with late '60s European and German soft-core porno soundtracks. We write with that sound as our ideal."
Boy oh boy do they deliver. There are maybe thirty words worth of lyrics in all nine tracks, but vocal horns stand in and sing while the audience gets its groove on. The Chaps roll over myriad percussion including woodblock, brushed cymbal, traditional kit beats and hand claps. Whenever there are vocals, they are chants or a pithy sentence, barely sung, like, "You know you can't do it like you really wanna do it, Baby," from the third track, "Jump Shout Shake."
This is not a soundtrack for a polite dinner, or good background music. This is a soundtrack for fast-driving road trips or bump-grinding good times with all your best pals at a club, barbecue or sleepover.
"Funky Matador" is my favorite track. It steps into the ring with a Spaghetti Western melody played on a smarmy trumpet. Enter the downbeat of a pure funk bass line and brushed high hat and the Matador's wearing Elvis's sequined jumpsuit under a disco ball.
In "Cruiser," the seventh track, one of two slower numbers, a leering alto sax asks and answers with trumpet and trombone till they slow trill in thirds and leave the song to drive you off into the sunset.
"Hot Chocolate" gives us the band going "mmm" and "ahhh" between decadent licks while making us wait for the chanted lyric, "hot chocolate!"
Most of the songs are between three and four minutes long and were I to lobby a complaint, it would be that it feels just a touch too long sometimes.
Still, The Chaps boast seasoned musicians: Luke Strahota, Eric Hedford, Peter Dean, Colin Sheridan, Jon Clark, Kyle Haverly and Pat Norris. Strahota is formerly of The High Violets, Hedford from the Dandy Warhols, and Dean from FastComputers.
The band's been recording since 2010, around the same time they started playing live around Portland, Ore. They keep it real with as much authentic equipment and recording procedures as possible, but with Hedford's caveat, "We are not Luddites and we don't shun modern recording conveniences. But we do our research and ask ourselves, 'How would it have been done back in the day?' And then we maintain that spirit."
The thing is, they're fusing genres and having fun, but they're not doing so at the expense of the original music's spirit and they're not too self serious or avant garde. So, while this is a little off the trodden path, it's also totally accessible. Everybody will love it: people who grew up with the garage anthems of the '60s, folks who covet a simpler time and anybody who likes to rock out and get down.
The album drops on June 12, but catch a sneak peak by visiting them online at thesatinchaps.com, where you can pre-order it.

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