Jerry Paquette ran the Kan-Tu Blue Jams for many years before moving onto to other interests. His Kan-Tu Blues Band gained amazing popularity in its day, and Paquette was wise to have gotten himself and his crew into the studio. They also made some live recordings. This CD Retro Review is a retrospective look at five Cds that were made back in the day, four studio efforts and one live recording.
Paquette plays a variety of styles, and he uses many techniques on his guitar, and he can get a lot of mileage out of a horn section and a harp player. He is a piano player as well and there is a CD of piano music he recorded in duet form with Travis Colby of Roomful Of Blues.
Kantu Blues Band: The Whole World’s Got The Blues(But They Just Don’t Know It Yet).
Paquette and rhythm guitar player Brad Barr produced this masterwork of 12 superb tracks at Northern Track Recording Studios in Wilmington, Vermont. Paquette’s hard driving, edgy blues guitar leads often make you think of barroom brawls. There is an aggressive streak in every thing Paquette does that echoes a rough personal background. This rough and tumble soul also makes very authentic blues music because he has lived through experiences that most of us only read about.
This CD also features Andy Callahan on bass, Gary Calderone on harp and saxophone, Jay Doucet on trumpet, John Tex on drums and Jerry Paige on tenor and bari saxophone. Paquette wrote seven tracks and he co-wrote five. His voice has that authentic grit of someone who was either born to sing the blues or had a lot of experience drinking hard stuff. Or, maybe both. Paquette sounds guttural and deep throughout.
Paquette’s ‘Long Lean Mama is simply his ode to a woman in passing, the kind that everybody has to check out. Not only does Paquette cut loose on lead, his horn section blows a wide wall of beautiful sound around him. Paquette’s solo travels through the meter like four wheeling through rugged terrain. His guitar just grips the landscape and rides with it.
Paquette’s slow burn song “Tearin’ My Soul Out” has his heart caught in his throat as his whiskey-soaked voice growls out his grief. His guitar sounds Z.Z. Top inspired, ballsy lead notes that claw their way into the groove. There is nothing faint of heart about the way Paquette approaches his craft. He pretty much attempts whatever he feels and he usually gets away with it. Even when he sticks to the format of verse, chorus, bridge, you never know until the song is over how far he will stretch those structures.
“Comin’ On Home” finds Paquette rockin’ out on vocals over a driving bluesy rhythm guitar and horns. CD opener “When Will I Ever Learn,” a number that cries out for airplay, finds Paquette bopping along mid-tempo with breezy rhythm guitar and cascading harp and jazzy horn behind him. This easy going piece shows that Paquette isn’t all about dazzling lead guitar techniques. He can do a lot with a mellow groove too, milking those slow boils for all their worth.
Second song “Storm Outside My Window” continues the mellow pace but there’s lead guitar this time and it has an edge, an edge that matches the wailing harp that sounds like a train coming down the tracks in its steadiness. Another that should’ve goten more radio play is “Voodoo Neighbor,” a low boil with Paquette’s lead guitar powerful yet restrained, hinting that there’s even more power behind it, and that makes it a force to be reckoned with. “Voodoo Neighbor” is about demonic possession of one of Paquette’s neighbor’s and how he wants to exorcise it with his shotgun.
Paquette does stretch himself beyond the blues here and there. “Come Back Baby” is a quality rocker with a slight oldies feel. “Unfinished Love” is a horn-backed Bo Diddley style beat-driven piece. “I Got Troubles” is one of those beauties of harmonica driven blues. “Walkin’ With You, Baby” has a bit of New Orleans coloring.
“Oh Baby” is a gutsy blues number with a groovy, wailing sax and rocking beat. Paquette gets feisty on lead guitar and he holds back his power enough to keep his sound crackling with tension. “Three Chances” is a blast of tasteful guitar phrases, horns, and a drummer who never quits his busy momentum.
The Whole World’s Got The Blues is simply a polished, well-crafted CD with many morsels of Paquette’s genius tossed over it.
Travis Colby & Jerry “The Reverend” Paquette: Double Or Nothing.
Did you know that Jerry Paquette, one of the northeast’s most brilliant guitarists is also a very accomplished piano player? He recorded this CD of piano duos with none other than Travis Colby of Roomful Of Blues. This CD will introduce you directly into Paquette’s piano talents as it has only the two players and a piano. Instrumentally, the pair use a myriad of styles and techniques to keep these tunes deep, fun, and interesting.
This CD opens with a speedy bop called “Hurricane Jerry.” Just when you find yourself enjoying a series of delicate single notes, a swell of chords rushes over it and the extra layer is soulful, inspiring, uplifting. “Meat ‘N Potatoes” has sweet, delicate, quick notes that tastefully overlap each other. You can tell that both piano players were having a ball, challenging each other with patterns and progressions.
“Blues For Ray” changes things up a bit from the previous two tracks. This Ray Charles inspired piece has the soulful feel in its single note tinkling. I can picture Ray Charles getting ready to sing, Charles being the spiritual influence for this. “Messin’ Around” is a cool mesh of chords and a bunch of other good things. This track has an old time vintage feeling in its barrelhouse approach. I can picture a bunch of people in zoot suits in an old fashioned juke joint drinking gin and playing cards.
There are cool shifts in technique that make this piano duo CD rich in variety. “Runt Da Dunt” has heavily accented chords that push this tune along with some muscle. “Free Trip” has a nice highway feel. Its speedy single notes and briskly paced chords makes me picture a 1920s gangsters heading down the highway to another city to rob a bank. “Strollin” reminds slightly of “Walking To New Orleans” by Fats Domino. Just a touch of stride makes me picture a nice pairs of shoes walking on a sidewalk pavement. This pace and a mid level emotional range sounds like someone wanted to just get out of the house for a spell.
Another amazing feat on this CD is how well Paquette and Colby can change their styles without losing the grand vision for the whole package. “Back At It” chugs along with some hearty chords and barroom piano boogie before “Rockin’ Chair” draws its inspiration from classic rock. “Idol Worship” has a little drama in its cascading, spiraling single notes over a thumping chord progression. You can definitely picture some action to this lilting barroom melody. Intricacies abound in this tinkling melody with an arc that ends with tasteful interplay. “Melting Pot” sounds like its title, a goulash of flavorful diversity, and, “Last Call” adds a B3 Hammond organ to the mix for a revved up, bluesy chord fest.
Kan-Tu Blues Band: Black Widow Blues
Fine bluesy guitar marks even-tempered opening cut “Anything It Takes.” Paquette has his high notes sounding expressive and his gruff bluesy voice sounds as authentic as a Mississippi juke joint. “I Wonder Why” has catchy, clever melodic phrases crawling all over an understated rhythm section. The contrast makes the melody lines sharp, precise, and clean. Paquette just keeps paying out more and more soulful feeling as he sails over the bass and drums with a string of high notes.
Paquette gives Howlin’ Wolf’s “Little Red Rooster” a loving, respectful treatment. His gruff bluesy vocal does justice to the lyrics and his lead guitar nimbly picks off those inspired sweet notes that ring high and low at the same time. “Watch Yourself” gets its charisma from a persistent rhythm. Bass notes accented in just the right places push this gracefully along and the drums have the mid-tempo gentleness and tone to help finesse things forward. In between these groove spaces, Paquette stands out with an edgy blues lead that dances with the rhythm section.
“Loan Me A Dime,” covered by Boz Scaggs in the 1970s, becomes the guts of this CD. Paquette sings his heart out on this one and his contained, icy smooth guitar leads cry out his soulful lament. Paquette also covers Chuck Berry’s “Oh Carol” with a lot of warmth for this 1950s rock and roll pioneer. His guitar here gets that Chuck Berry style of picking out a lot of the notes from a chord in quick succession. Then Paquette puts his own mark on the lead phrases, another testament to his gifts.
“Bonehead” is an instrumental and its title is likely inspired by some of the musicians at Paquette’s Kan-Tu Blues Band jams who made too many mistakes for his liking. He was known to kick them off stage if they mucked something up more than once. I also heard tales about Paquette throwing things at one of the drummers. This piece plays out pretty smoothly, expertly, so it might be Paquette’s way of saying to his players, “Hey, kid. Watch this! Learn something!” He can be heard yelling at someone near the end of this tune.
Paquette’s sense of humor surfaces on “Oreo Cookie Blues,” a slow burn of snappy guitar licks. This song could best be described as a spiritual mission to get to the creamy center. “Rockin’ My Blues Away” offers more tender guitar licks, tastefully delivered. Paquette plays out his inconsolable grief with sharp melody lines that come from the artist’s soul. “Everything Gonna Be All Right” has itself a funky riff that Paquette speeds up and let’s rip. His genius in this song is how many notes he can compress into each meter.
“Drag Jam In G’ offers more of Paquette’s tasty licks in an instrumental form so that words don’t get in the way of what he’s feeling here. He can certainly bend or sustain a note like nobody’s business and the resulting sound gives off a lot of feeling. Paquette takes the standard “Stormy Monday” for a ride around the block and he pulls a lot of cool magic out of those strings. “Messing Around With Slide” is exactly what it sounds like and of course Paquette is real good at getting that clean vintage sound, conjuring up that real down and dirty Mississippi delta blues sound. “Hoochie Coochie Man” is simply Paquette having fun with a Muddy Waters classic.
Kan-Tu Blues Band Blues Crazy
“Reverend Boogie” starts this disc out with some rock and roll madness. Paquette rocks out like a demon on guitar. His fret work is energetic and fiery, notes bending, sustaining, doing what the maestro wants them to. Horns and harp put their three cents in and a feeling of overwhelming joy reflects how much these players must have been feeling it in the studio.
Paquette and his crew jump right into “Crossroads” with Paquette sounding appropriately whiskey-throated and he makes his guitar scream like a man on fire. “Pawnshop” is a rocking masterpiece. You simply have to hear Paquette sing out “mister pawn, pawn, pawny broker” to enjoy the catchy chorus. The drum beat and bass guitar move and make you feel it. Paquette’s guitar is quick and riffy and his voice is so steadily gruff that you feel the bleak economic circumstances the singer is in. The guitar playing turns phenomenal near the end.
Another version of “Loan Me A Dime” that Paquette recorded for a previous Kan-Tu recording gets a more articulate improvement here. The guitar is feistier and the vocal has more tender pain. “Tigerman,” a song popularized by Elvis Presely in early 1970s Vegas, gets a 1950s feel in the way Paquette plays it and from the horn section that shadows him. This song straddles the worlds of blues and old time rock and roll and Paquette is comfortable with both formats, allowing him to ring every bit of fun out of both genres simultaneously. “I Ain’t Superstitious” is a pedal to the floor blues number. Aggressive, edgy, you feel like you’re racing around a corner on two wheels not knowing if you’re going to make it or tip over.
A bopping pace and swinging horn section make “Guess I’m Going To Have To Wait” a joyful walk through Paquette’s witty insights into a relationship. A sprightly harp line thickens the fun of this song. “Poor Us Blues” is a slow groove with Paquette’s piercing guitar taking turns in the spotlight with a fanciful sax melody. Paquette’s throaty growl works well in these slower tempo dramas. His voice is rich with experience and expression and in blues you just can’t substitute for that.
Paquette’s cover of “Mustang Sally” shows as much genius as anything Jimi Hendrix ever covered from personal favorites. It has rocking guitar and driving horns and it is simply a fantastic re-imagining of the original.
Paquette and his Kan-Tu boys close out with the classic rock tune “I Hear Your Knocking.” His enthusiastic delivery of the chorus and an elastic interpretation of the guitar will conjure pleasant memories of when we first heard this song and the multiple possibilities it will surely inspire.
Kan-Tu Blues Band: Live At O’Donnell’s
This fantastic live recording highlights the energy that could be found at any of Paquette’s Kan-Tu Blues Band jams. “You Don’t Have To Go” opens this live disc with Paquette’s glorious fretwork, fine, brittle leads carefully picked. He reaches moments of sublime beauty in “You Don’t Have To Go” and its only the first song. “Wait & See” features Skip Philbrick on guitar and vocals and the lead guitar sounds like it’s skating on thin air, smooth, seamless. Philbrick also sings lead vocal on B.B. King’s “Thrill Is Gone” and Paquette makes his guitar cry with sweet note bending and sustaining.
Paquette and his boys soon move onto the crowd pleaser “Why Get Up?” and the lead vocalist has the perfect understated voice, making himself sound whipped. “Too Hot To Handle” gets an elegant guitar treatment from Philbrick who keeps those guitar notes high and precise. “Tigerman,” a favorite that Paquette still loves to play at blues jams, gets more of a rockabilly beat here than on a previous Kan-Tu studio recording. An R&B guitar riff and an even-Steven rhythm section breathe new life into it.
“Long Distance Call” is slow grooving and laden with clever, brittle guitar, Paquette gently pours out his emotive vocal ability. Beyond the gruff, whiskey-throated voice is a man who has something to say. “My Baby Left Me” is an old Arthur Crudup tune and on this version Paquette brings in a Chuck Berry influence in its tempo and chord progression. “Jerry’s Piano Boogie” is fantastic fun in the live setting and it sounds like the crowd is enjoying it.
On all five of these Cds, Paquette’s love for the material he wrote and covered is abundantly clear. You cannot help but to feel the man’s heart and soul. His love for his guitar work and his love for good harp and good horns also makes it through to the listeners. His insistence on every band member getting everything done right is clear in all of the carefully recorded excellence. These Cds, while not perfect, perfectly capture the heart and soul of a true artist.
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What a great review…Jerry (The Rev) is a master of his trade,Definitely worth the listen.