Album: Stormy Blue
Artist: Stormy Blue
Year: 2001
1. Talk Back
2. I’m Sweet
3. Midnight Creeper
4. Star Child
5. I Give My Love to You
6. By Your Side (Instrumental)
7. By Your Side (Vocal)
8. Jo (Vocal)
9. Jo (Instrumental)
10. The Everlasting End (Vocal)
11. The Everlasting End (Instrumental)
12. Show Me
13. Man of God
A short-lived rock band (with a bluesy feel) out of Chicago, Stormy Blue never really did anything outside of its hometown. So why did I notice them? My senior year of college I signed up for something or other at one of those booths outside and I got to reach into a bag and blindly pull out a CD. This was it.
It’s produced by Chicago soul-man John “Stormy” Colley (who arranged some of his biggest work in the 60’s as a teenager), though even the liner notes don’t make it clear who’s singing. I don’t really know how to describe their sound. Perhaps a poor man’s Teddy Pendergrass if he had a band with the occasional synthesizer? I’ll just say that if I was in a blues bar and heard this lineup of songs, I’d leave pretty satisfied. They are generally honest, simple songs. Occasionally overproduced, and the three consecutive songs with separate instrumental versions is a bit much. But it’s a calming album.
Blues with occasional synthesizer seems wrong to me somehow.
Oh, it is. Thankfully, it doesn’t enter in the good songs.