Savoy Brown - Goin To The Delta '2014

Tracks list

Tracklist
---------
01. Laura Lee
02. Sad News
03. Nuthin Like The Blues
04. When Youve Got A Good Thing
05. Cobra
06. Backstreet Woman
07. Goin To The Delta 
08. Just A Dream
09. Turn Your Lamp On
10. I Miss Your Love
11. Sleeping Rough
12. Going Back

Pack a bag. Buckle up. Hit the gas. Goin’ To The Delta invites you to
ride shotgun with Kim Simmonds on a musical road trip through his spiritual
homeland. “When I started the band back in 1965,” says Savoy
Brown’s iconic frontman and guitarist, “The concept was to be a
British version of a Chicago blues band. Now, here we are in 2014, and once
again, the music on this recording echoes the blues sounds of Chicago.” 

Goin’ To The Delta is the sound of a band with the wind in their sails.
Following 2011’s acclaimed Voodoo Moon and last year’s
whip-cracking live set, Songs From The Road, Savoy Brown are in a swagger, and
you can hear the momentum on these 12 love letters to American blues. Rather
than reinvent the wheel, Kim applies his own unmistakable thumbprint to the
classic blues shapes, from upbeat Windy City bouncers like “Laura
Lee” and “Nuthin’ Like The Blues” to the weeping slowie
“Just A Dream” and the stinging instrumental “Cobra.” 

“The band’s style has evolved in many directions, whilst always
keeping the blues as its root,” says Kim of the Savoy Brown back
catalogue. “Now we’ve come full circle. The songs and playing on
this album are straightforward in focus and as basic as blues should be.” 

Maybe so, but when it comes to the lyrics, Goin’ To The Delta gets
complicated. Kim has always been a great chronicler of human relationships, and
the women come and go on this album, too, from the ex-lover who changes the
locks on the raunchy “Sleeping Rough” to the mistress who lets him
sneak out the back-door on “Turn Your Lamp On.” Along the way,
there’s sorrow on “Sad News” (“I’m like a star
without a sky”) and redemption, too, in the closing “Going
Back” (“I’m going back to my baby, been away too
long…”). 

Like the women, plenty of musicians have flowed through the Savoy Brown lineup
over the years, but after the stellar contribution of Pat DeSalvo (bass) and
Garnet Grimm (drums) to Songs From The Road, it was a no-brainer to assemble
that same rhythm section at Subcat Studios, Syracuse, New York. “The band
on this album gets to show what great blues musicians they are,” says Kim,
“Playing tunes right in their wheelhouse. Through the changing years, my
guitar playing has stayed the same, though many say I’m playing guitar
better than I did in the ’60s.” 

Anyone with even a fleeting knowledge of blues-rock will appreciate
that’s no small statement. Rewind to 1965 Kim was a lynchpin of perhaps
the most exciting scene in history, establishing Savoy Brown in the first wave
of British blues boomers, signing to Decca, opening for Cream’s first
London show and being namedropped in the same breath as peers like Eric Clapton
and Jimi Hendrix (with whom he jammed). Even then, the guitarist was emerging as
the band’s driving force. “I had a vision,” he says.
“And the exciting thing now is, that vision is still alive.” 

Soon enough, Savoy Brown had achieved what most British bands never did –
success in America – and became a major Stateside draw thanks to their
high-energy material and tireless work ethic. “There’s way too much
said about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll,” Kim told Classic
Rock magazine in 2008. “It’s such a cliché. We were all
extremely hard-working guys. When we came over to America, we were like a little
army. I look at that time as being filled with incredible talent.” Times
changed, of course, and by 1979, Simmonds had moved from a London he no longer
recognised – “The punks were everywhere!” – to settle
permanently in the United States. The Savoy Brown band members came and went,
and the music scene shifted around him, but the guitarist stuck thrillingly to
his guns and reaped the rewards, performing in iconic venues like Carnegie Hall
and the Fillmore East and West, releasing more than 30 albums, and later
enjoying a well-deserved induction into Hollywood’s Rock Walk Of Fame. 

Coming up on 50 years in the making, Kim Simmonds’ career is sprawling
and eclectic, but every move he’s made has always been underpinned by his
deep love for the blues. Now, in February 2014, Goin’ To The Delta
continues to bring that passion to the surface, channeling the classic vibe of
the US blues masters through Kim’s modern worldview to create a musical
statement that is both fresh and familiar. “Maybe Shuffles, Boogies and
Blues should have been the album’s title,” notes the bandleader.
“It’s certainly what you’ll be listening to for the next
hour or so …”

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