3/14/2007

ROBERT GABRIEL

Picking up where the Band of Gypsys left off, the Soul of John Black proved unequivocally that to this day there's still absolutely nothing wrong with idolizing the fuck out of Jimi Hendrix. L.A.-based southpaw guitarist John Bigham led a traditional power trio through jangling forays into deep blues territory, where the former Miles Davis protégé and Fishbone stalwart had every bent cowboy hat in the place nodding in rote agreement. Citing not just Hendrix, but Albert King and Lonnie Brooks along the way, Bigham utilized road-tested Studebaker technology to barnstorm the rhythmic countryside with promised-land aspirations. Showcasing material from 07's The Good Girl Blues, TSOJB's chicken-scratch mentality conjured the actual stutters produced when a flightless bird lurches for ghost kernels strewn about its pent-up imagination. From the bottom of "The Hole," Bigham's blues realization that "whatn't nobody but me" rang like an actively-obliterated "Room Full of Mirrors."