ROBERT BRADLEY & BLACKWATER SURPRISE
Still Lovin' You (Vanguard)
Reviewed by Shaun Dale

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Robert Bradley & Blackwater Surprise have achieved a degree of notoriety on the jam band scene for the groove inflected blues-rock that has filled three albums and many stages, but there's little evidence of that act on this disc. For one thing, there are no original members of the band remaining, and there's considerable input from outside players on much of Still Lovin' You. The biggest change, though, is in the style of the music presented. Bradley, the blind street performer 'discovered' by a group of Detroit rockers, takes a strong turn in the direction of the music he'd been creating for over three decades before there was a Blackwater Surprise and delivers up ten tracks of sweet soul music.

The result is an album with echoes of Otis and Marvin, and if you need last names here, well, you probably won't enjoy this album all that much. There seems to be a generational divide in the reaction - folks (like me) that remember the great soul music of the sixties and seventies rave about it, and folks whose musical roots don't extend that deeply seem to be less enamored of it.

So if you're among those that hopes every new R&B release will be an honest to God SOUL album, this is it. If you'd rather have some discofied bluesy groove tunes, well, the shelves are full of that, too.

Track List:

All I Wanna Do * I Thank You * Still Lovin' You * When You Love Something * Pretender * Anna * Virginia * Don't Take Your Love Away * Work It Out * Hollywood

[Pick this up at www.vanguardrecords.com.]

© 2004 - Shaun Dale