Sonny Landreth - The Road We're On - 2003

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Sonny Landreth - The Road We're On - 2003

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Product Description: THE ROAD WE'RE ON was nominated for the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Guitar whiz Sonny Landreth hails from the Mississippi/Louisiana region, and his ability to bridge swamp rock, blues, and zydeco is a reflection of his home area's rep as a wonderful melting pot of roots music. THE ROAD WE'RE ON affirms Landreth's ability to tap into this well of inspiration, and with slide in hand the charter member of John Hiatt's Goners puts on a dazzling display. "All About You" finds him using a growling guitar to shape a Stevie Ray Vaughan-flavored shuffle, the snappy "Juke Box Mama" switches to some finely plucked steel-string work, and "Gone Pecan" chugs along convincingly with zydeco serving as the main source of inspiration. Although the lyrics on this entirely self-penned effort tend to be a bit on the light side, Landreth's mastery of the six-string provides to be a sufficient to carry him through. Be it slow blues ("A World Away"), faux swing (the title track), or jammy southern rock ("Gemini Blues"), Landreth mastery of his instrument makes this album quite the satisfying listen. Recorded at Electric Comoland, Lafayette, Louisiana.
Sonny Landreth's 10-year career as a leader has always seemed tenuous, because he's a one-dimensional singer and only an adequate songwriter. But these 12 numbers run deeper than his previous recordings. Like much of his catalog, they straddle the worlds of blues, Cajun and zydeco, and New Orleans party music, but the blues dominates. And that gives the conflagrant Mississippi-born and Louisiana-raised slide guitarist plenty of fuel. So he burns liberally at every turn, from the acoustic resonator guitar that opens and closes the disc to the percolating funk of "Hell at Home" and the Allmans-like, riff-driven intensity of "Fallin' for You." "A World Away" is this album's tour de force, with Landreth summoning soul from the seldom-used soft side of his voice and slow, moaning guitar lines, whose steel-on-steel cries echo the resigned heartbreak of the lyrics. The CD's sterling production puts Landreth's guitar front and center, which reaffirms the former John Hiatt and Clifton Chenier sideman's instrumental mastery.

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Sonny Landreth - The Road We're On - 2003

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Review: Sonny Landreth's new CD, "The Road We're On" is a tour de force. Here is your opportunity to hear a musical original at the peak of his power. Widely recognized as the greatest slide guitarist on the planet he is that and so much more. With guitar playing as sensual as Jimi Hendrix and singing as evocative as Jim Morrison what more could you ask for? Well, in addition you get fantastic and unique songwriting that accentuates his amazing guitar skills. From the wry humor of "Gemini Blues", which Sonny describes as a "Menage a Trois between two people", to the pure romance of "Falling for You" this is a CD to love. Whether you are looking for a slide guitar hero or a crooner to make you swoon you will find it here. The first time I heard Sonny Landreth play, which was just a year ago, I opened my mouth and couldn't close it until the set was finished. I literally did not believe what I heard. It felt like I was hearing Bach play the harpsicord or Louis Armstrong the trumpet. While Landreth's influences are many his sound is entirely unique. Why wait until until he has been dead 100 years? Support this musical genius now. A self confessed guitar geek, Sonny presses, pushes, pulls and slaps guitar strings in ways that no one else has ever figured out. He has earned the respect of musicians as diverse as Mark Knopfler and Jimmy Buffett. Sonny's new CD "The Road We're On" has a wonderful familiar nostalgic feel to it while at the same time being completely original. This sound is created with, among other things, the use of vintage guitars and microphones to create a kind of echoing fifties Chuck Berry mood. Landreth can get a range of sounds from an electric guitar that you have never heard before, my favorite being that of a mandolin on the eery, otherworldly "World Away". Nobody does spooky nighttime in the Louisiana swamp better than Sonny Landreth.
After too many years as a sideman it is long past time for Sonny to step into the spotlight. He is what we all might wish to be, a legend in his own time. ~ Amazon Customer

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Sonny Landreth - The Road We're On - 2003

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Sonny Landreth - The Road We're On - 2003

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