Brickyard Blues Band were the perfect match for Milford, New Hampshire’s new blues room Memphis BBQ & Blues last night. Fronted by Brian James on vocals and guitar, the Bricks played with tight grooves and feisty melodies that felt like the real thing all night long.
Brickyard opened with Hootchie Kootchie man with saxophone pouring plenty of gravy over the tightly arranged meat and potatoes. James’s lead guitar was a smooth flow of blues drenched high notes. He beefed up the song with some rhythm licks and he greased the rails with his sharp lead phrases.
James and his boys jumped right into “Messing With The Kid” with its slamming speedy changes and rippling saxophone melody. James fired off another of his smoky guitar leads before the horn blasts from saxophonist Tom Hoctor lit the song on fire.
Hoctor handled the lead vocal duties easily on “Stray Cat Strut.” The tune’s cool, slow-grooving’ feeling was right on time with James’s rhythmic riffs and his suggestive cooing. The rhythm section showed its muscle here. Drummer Eric Wagley and bassist Bernie Rozmovits had their throbbing knobbiness marching it along underneath those coos and fau vintage era guitar lines. Hoctor did his lead vocal thing again a bit later on with Bill Wither’s “Use Me,” sounding determined over its swishing groove and suggestive melody.
Cold Shot,” from its opening rhythm guitar pendulum to its sax hustle and bopping low end and wide, fulsome beat, was a clever, involved take on an infamous blues bar song. James’s pedal effects allowed for a Wurlitzer sound that briefly highlighted another dimension to his rangy talents. He just didn’t use his special midi effects as much as usual through out the evening.
It was impressive how Hoctor’s saxophone breezed through the melody on “I’ve Got My Mojo Working” while James got a friendly blues twang out of his guitar. His exchanges with his horn man inspired the rhythm boys to whip up a mighty mojo beat and tumescent groove.
James lead Brickyard into his dog song “My Mojo,” a tune he penned about man’s best friend, or his best friend, Mojo, a four legged companion who James said was waiting for him to get home. The tune was marked by good interplay between all four musicians. A cool sax melody, courtesy of Hoctor, wound itself warmly around its rhythms and beat, framing it tightly together.
Al Green’s “Take Me To The River” was played and constructed sharply around slappy beats and a tight groove that provided the foundation for more of Hoctor’s jumpy horn melodies. “Shaky Ground” was another tight in the pocket groove with the rhythm boys nailing the stop-start rhythm. Rozmovits’s bass solo was a fun, bumpy ride over a gravel road of low end magic.
Hoctor yanked the foursome immediately into Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” Then next thing you know, James’s spiraling, rippling guitar notes exploded at the break before the foursome fitted it back concisely into “Shaky Ground.”
There was a sense of energy and fun at this new room, Memphis BBQ & Blues. You can feel the audience appreciation for what these guys were laying down each time they started a new number. The boys stepped into perennial blues bar band favorite “Treat Her Right,” which they kept chugging along with speedy momentum.
James and his boys could also dive into songs with bottomless emotional depths. They went into the groove of “Ain’t No Sunshine” without a moments notice and Roz got busy and subtle on his four string, making you feel the soul inside his hard twangy notes. James played his guitar like there was iron and steel to be mined out of this song. He excavated the sorrow and brought it back to the top so fans could feel as well as hear.
Brickyard played “It Is What It Is” from their next album which James jokingly said they’ve been finishing up for the last few years. It had a lot of nice things going on, ringing guitar notes, up-tempo rhythm section, and greasy sax lines that jabbed then slivered around for a while.
Like a lot of saxophone bands, Brickyard had to come up with horn parts for classic tunes originally famous with just guitars. ZZ Top’s “Tush” was like a new improved sax rendition and “Rock This Tune” was another Stray Cats offering from the decade of Reagan and spandex and synthesizers. But Brickyard is primarily a blues band, at heart anyway, and Albert King’s “Matchbox Blues” featured the kind of bracing guitar rhythms and snaky saxophone lines that make blues a tasty roadhouse music.
Brickyard played two versions of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” last night. They did a rockabilly take that showcased the possibilities of this song. The saxophone line was a soulful spin to a song that was written and recorded way back in the 1930s and never seems to grow old. Then the boys started over with the slam bang Eric Clapton blues-rock version that turned the song into a FM radio staple. Guitar and saxophone cranked things up while that tight as hell rhythm section rolled it forward like a huge wooden moonshine barrel that got loose.
“Walking The Dog” gave drummer Eric Wagley a spotlight to show off some of his quick, snappy, rapid fire approach. Wagley seemed to be playing 16th notes and 32nd notes on his drum pieces. It worked beautifully. That speedy approach filled it up with plenty of smacks. Favorite bar band songs that followed included fulsome takes on Sly And The Family Stone’s “Thank You For…,” Ray Charles’s “Unchain My Heart,” and a Jimi Hendrix twofer of “Fire” and “Red house.” Needless to say, it was a high energy closer.
This four piece line up of The Brickyard Blues Band got by on an undeniable tightness and on James’s soul lead vocal, which he needs to do more often. It also didn’t hurt that Memphis BBQ & Blues in Milford, New Hampshire is an exciting new room with the perfect size and acoustics to enjoy blues with a beer and a pulled pork sandwich.
http://www.brickyardblues.com/
