The Blues Remind Me
Independent release, 2024
REVIEW BY: Conrad Warre
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 07/19/2024
Kelly Zirbes met Texas guitarist and sound engineer Perry Robertson in 1996, who produced the live album called Kelly’s Lot – Live At The Troubador and subsequently joined Zirbes in as a co-writer and guitar player in the band Kelly’s Lot.
The band has recorded and released 16 albums ranging from electric and acoustic to Americana and blues, and in July 2024 Kelly’s Lot released The Blues Remind Me, their third straight blues album. The album was mixed by Robertson and features Mike Sauer on drums, Matt McFadden bass guitar, with Mo Beeks on keyboards and occasional vocals. Saxophone player Bill Johnston played and arranged the horn parts with saxophonist Paulie Cerra and Didier Reyes, Chip Tingle, Aviva Maloney and Tomislav Goluban special guest on harmonica. The songs are all original, recorded and performed with precision.
The album delivers 10 songs of varied blues moods from the early Santana- and Malo-inspired “Just Tell Me The Truth,” packed with elegant horn architecture, to the Texas swing of “Boogie Bus” and the J.B. Lenoir flavored “Love and Understanding.” From slow and dramatic to the faster, swinging tracks, this album covers all the bases. Zirbes lets go on the up-tempo “Aces,” but the most interesting song, and furthest outlier in blues styles, is the fifth track. “Man In The Moon” opens with ’50s noir trumpet, hushed vocals and an acoustic bass solo, finishing beautifully with a cool blue trumpet solo’s incomplete cadence. The horns have been imaginatively orchestrated throughout the album, and the rhythm section is concise and stays inside the compositions without getting too fancy, the vocals are spot on. A little more chaos might have enlivened the album, but for the majority of the blues listening audience the mixing and production for The Blues Remind Me is perfect.
Kelly’s Lot have been playing and touring regularly in California, Texas, Missouri, Croatia and France, and are headed to Europe in the summer of 2024, booked to play the Howth Roots & Blues Fetsival in Ireland and the Jerry Ricks Blues Festival in Croatia, returning to the United States to play The Tall City Blues Festival in Midland, Texas on September 21st.