Little Milton

"Welcome To Little Milton"

Malaco Records

One trend popular today is the " compilation" record: an artist with widespread name recognition in a particular category who is in the latter stages of his/her career, teams with " guest stars", often new and old, either in an attempt to re-vitalize a career or to cross over
into a different musical genre. The most recent well known example is Santana's Grammy-winning "Supernatural".

Little Milton's version is a solid effort which offers a nice variety of talent. The opening track, When Blues comes Knockin', features Gov't Mule, an Allman Brothers sound and great slide guitar right out of the box. L.M. sounds fine on Mother Earth and he needs to since he's paired with Susan Tedeschi, who can really wail. No guitar licks from her but some very nice brass from the Muscle Shoal Horns. He immediately follows that with another excellent blueswoman in Lucinda Williams, who teams with Milton on Love Hurts. It's a perfect fit for Williams' vocal style and demonstrates impressive acoustic slide and percussion. It doesn't
bear much resemblance to Nazareth's 70s hit, but an interesting interpretation nonetheless.

There are a couple of minor misses. Never Trust A Woman with Dave Alvin is fair, but Little charlie and the Nightcats did it better just a couple of years ago. And while there are those who respect Peter Wolf as a blues artist, I'm not one of them. But the record closes strongly as Delbert Mcclinton shines with L.M. on Some Kind Of Wonderful, a hit for Grand Funk Railroad years ago. Milton saves the best for last with Willie Dixon's I can't Quit You Baby, most popularly done by Led Zepplin. This is an awesome version with Gov't Mule closing the disc with the same passion with which they opened it.

This is deep, nasty blues at its finest with the best guitar work on the entire cd. Looks like Little Milton is ready to forge on into the new millenium.

Steve Magner

© copyright 1999, Suncoast Blues Society