Walter Trout & The Free Radicals - Live Trout (2000)

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Walter Trout & The Free Radicals - Live Trout (2000)

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New Jersey-born blues-rocker Walter Trout spent decades as an ace sideman, playing guitar behind the likes of John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, and Joe Tex. In 1981, he was also tapped to replace the late Bob Hite in Canned Heat, remaining with the venerable group through the middle of the decade. While filling in one night for an ailing John Mayall, Trout (also a Bluesbreaker for some five years) was spotted by a Danish concert promoter who agreed to finance a solo tour. Assembling his own backing band, he released his debut LP in 1990, Life in the Jungle, trailed a year later by Prisoner of a Dream. Albums including 1992's Live (No More Fish Jokes), 1994's Tellin' Stories, and 1997's Positively Beale Street followed. Trout continued a steady release schedule, issuing Livin' Every Day in 1999, a live album the following year (recorded at the Tampa Bay Blues Fest), the 2001 studio album Go the Distance, 2003's Relentless – which Trout and his band the Radicals recorded in front of a live audience – and 2005's Deep Trout, a compilation of early and unreleased recordings. On the 2006 release Full Circle, Trout realized his dream of creating an album with some of his most admired musicians, including John Mayall, Coco Montoya, and Joe Bonamassa, among others. The 2009 compilation Unspoiled by Progress found Trout handpicking live tracks recorded on the road throughout his career. The following year he was back in the studio and released Common Ground. On 2012's Blues for the Modern Daze, he wrote 15 tracks based on his country-blues roots. His 23rd album, Luther's Blues, a tribute to one of his main influences, the late Luther Allison, was originally released in Europe in 2010, and finally issued in the United States in 2013.

Trout had been having health problems for some time, and discovered his liver was failing in late 2013. He went on a transplant list early the next year, and on May 26, 2014 underwent successful transplant surgery. Two weeks later, Provogue issued Blues Came Callin', a recording that marked his 25th anniversary as a solo artist. Trout continued to recover with some complications that required another surgery.

A series of interviews with British journalist Henry Yates resulted in the autobiography Rescued Reality: The Life and Times of Walter Trout, published in early 2015. Trout was strong enough to tour and record again. Less than a year after his transplant, he cut another album entitled Battle Scars, set for release in the fall.

~ Jason Ankeny, All Music

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Walter Trout & The Free Radicals - Live Trout (2000)

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No overdubs, no sweetening, in fact, no extra music to flesh out this relatively slim double disc (available at a single price) that clocks in at a combined total of only 96 minutes: Welcome to one full Walter Trout performance, complete with between song patter as well as every note – and there are a lot of them – the guitarist played at this March 2000 show. Filled with blistering, unrefined, and unadulterated blues-rock, Trout has been playing shows identical to this for years in Europe where he is a fairly major star. The accomplished guitar slinger unfailingly delivers the sizzling six-string goods, especially in concert with his gritty yet undistinguished voice and frenetic leads. On his second live album, but first easily available in the States, Trout pulls out all the stops, shifting from the stinging slow blues and soft-loud dynamics of "Finally Gotten Over You" and "The Reason I'm Gone" to the all-out grinding swamp of "Gotta Broken Heart" and the meat and potatoes Chuck Berry by way of Johnny Winter rock and roll of "Good Enough to Eat." Tough, roughshod, and passionate, Trout, who had gone without sleep for 24 hours before this show, doesn't sound a bit fatigued. The liner notes state that this even adds an edge to this performance. A sideline into Bob Dylan's "I Shall Be Released" adds some much needed subtly and a bit of gospel flavor to the proceedings, but Trout works best when his lightening fingers, brawny sustain, and hot dog fret runs are given free reign. It's all sweaty, powerful, and uncompromising, but without a unique voice, either vocally or instrumentally, Trout remains a gifted, hard working, undoubtedly scintillating live performer without the idiosyncratic edge to pull away from a pack of equally talented blues rockers.

~ Hal Horowitz, All Music

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Walter Trout & The Free Radicals - Live Trout (2000)

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Walter Trout & The Free Radicals - Live Trout (2000)

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Walter Trout & The Free Radicals - Live Trout (2000)

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