Artist: Healey, Jeff
Label: Ruf Records
Release: 2009
Runtime: 52.16
Rating: 2.5/5
“Songs From The Road” is anything but a sweet treat that Healey fans would wolf down with great relish, even though the album hides a fair amount of first-rate guitar fire. It’s an incredibly inconsistent product, a sort of forcibly stitched-together compilation of live recordings by the guitarist, drawing on concert tapes from the Notodden Blues Festival in Norway (2006), London (2007), with a couple of tracks lifted from a show at Healey’s own Roadhouse club in Toronto (2007).
So far, so good. Where does the main problem lurk? The aforementioned beast has shamelessly parked its hairy backside right in the selection of material, where we find exclusively songs written by other people. Put differently, this posthumously released tribute to the guitarist consists solely of dispensable covers of more or less familiar tunes, which at best you could call odd, especially considering that Healey earned his seat among the music greats as a prolific songwriter and performer of his own material. On top of that, for some baffling reason the album’s tracks are sloppily cobbled together, which basically means we slog through a dozen songs to an annoyingly hiccupping rhythm that never gives you the organic feel of a genuine live atmosphere. It’s more like a “juke box” lottery with no jackpot at the end, one that with brutal resolve thins out the taste of musical excellence in the album’s already scarce, sin-worthy highlights.
Sure, the album doesn’t lack punchy dives into the cracks of classic blues numbers, through which Jeff’s guitar playing cuts with its trademark sharpness and vitality. But as said, “Songs From The Road” immediately serves up a heap of covers that are at best deadly dull, if not downright boy-scout adventures. “Come Together”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and the Allman Brothers favorite “Whipping Post”, on which keyboardist Dave Murphy lays down a few exemplary, tantalizing vocal lines, can barely dodge the whiff of bar-band-flavored noodling. Most of the attention is thus effortlessly grabbed by the Willie Dixon classics “I’m Ready” and “Hoochie Coochie Man”, the latter also thanks to a nicely poured-out improvisation, really a sort of string duel between the guitarist and Randy Bachman. Pleasant enough, but from a musician of Healey’s caliber and renown we can rightfully demand more than limply dragged-out covers of rock & roll standards, of which the borrowed Cream classic “White Room” fares best (that’s if you somehow manage to escape the claws of the unconvincing vocal). Of course the question arises of the need for, and ultimately the point of, such an obviously thoughtless pile of covers, especially considering that in the selectors’ “expert” opinion not even iron-clad stuff of “Confidence Man” caliber deserved a spot on the album!! Denying the peaks of Jeff’s shamelessly cut-short musical journey is nothing less than blasphemous!
Posthumous releases in one format or another usually capture the creative peaks of an artist, not to mention that these days such “keepsakes” are as a rule stuffed with assorted rarities and a ballast of extra material to soothe the appetites of even the most demanding consumer, which is why they stay revered as relics in fans’ display cabinets for a long time. “Songs From The Road”, on the other hand, shows that the planners of such musical memorial documents can often run out of ideas and good taste at precisely the crucial moment, or, ultimately, and most painfully of all, even out of will.
Lineup
Jeff Healey: guitar, vocals
Dan Nordermeer: guitar, vocals
Alec Fraser: bass, vocals
Dave Murphy: keyboards, vocals
Al Webster: drums
Randy Bachman: guitar on “Hoochie Coochie Man”
Production
Alec Fraser
Tracklist
1. I Think I Love You Too Much
2. I’m Ready
3. Stop Breaking Down
4. Angel Eyes5
5. Come Together
6. Hoochie Coochie Man
7. White Room
8. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
9. Whipping Post
10. Teach Your Children Well
11. Santa Bring My Baby Back To Me
