Little blues and nothing revolutionnary

The Revolutionary Blues Band 

LP Coral (US, 1970)

It’s summer time, very hot here in Morocco, so I’ll go for the least effort solution.  Posting albums that I own in my collection but re-using rips collected from the net over the years.   Too hot for new rips, and anyway I’m 3000 km from my vinyl collection.  So I’ll cheat.

This one was another discount bin perennial.  I must confess that my friends and I were somewhat disappointed when we first heard it (in the early seventies).  My friend Dédé had bought it (Place du Jeu de Balle, probably) because of Tom Scott playing on it.  We all had bought a copy of Rural StillLife (on Impulse) and we were hoping for something similar. It wasn't. By the way, Rural Still Life remains my all time favourite Tom Scott album.

Then the band had “blues band” in its moniker and in terms of blues we were into Butterfield Blues Band, Dirty Blues Band ... and here was the name of Rod Piazza, of Dirty Blues Band / Bacon Fat fame. Second disappointment, the band did not sound at all like any of those blues bands. 

I never understood at what type of audience such an album was aimed.  Not the blues fan, not the rock fan, not the straight jazz fan ...  The album was produced by Bob Thiele and is very much in the line of some instrumental MOR albums on Flying Dutchman.  It’s gently soul jazzy / funky. It's not smooth jazz yet but, with hindsight, one could see the direction Scott was heading to.

David Bennett Cohen (of Country Joe & the Fish fame, remember "Section 43"?) was on piano (and perhaps guitar also).

David Cohen (source: his website)

Soul Blues stalwart Arthur Adams (Crusaders, Jimmy Smith ...) plays the funky guitar.  No idea about the bass and drums.

Arthur Adams (Source:BlindPig Records)

Arrangements are by Gene Page (Love Unlimited, Philly Sound).  All tracks are instrumentals but one "That's The Truth Baby" featuring vocalist Lightnin Red Jones (no idea who that bloke could be).

I had not listened to this album for ages until Red Telephone66 posted it a few years back (that's where this rip comes from).  It’s not half as bad as I thought.    If you like late 60s  jazzy bluesy instrumentals in the vein of Monk Higgins, Freddie Robinson, Phil Upchurch  ... you’ll probably enjoy this album.  Last year my friend Dédé gave me his copy (and a few other LPs) and I'm quite happy to have it in my collection.  Thanks mate!

Track Order:

01.       Juicy

02.       Milkman, Milkman Leave Me Some Cream Today

03.       Lanoola Goes Limp

04.       That's The Truth Baby

05.       Have A Little Bit More

06.       Take Me Back To Tennessee

07.       Cutting The Mustard

08.       Ring My Chimes

09        Funky Lady

10.       Dirty Town Blues

Never re-issued on CD.  Thanks to whoever put the cover photos on Discogs.