Shor’ty Billups and his Foxxx Band have come up with a fantastic CD. Young Woman “Ana” Old Man is loaded with fine blues offerings and soul flavored numbers. Billups’ voice makes him sound like a thirty year old crooner even though this Bostonian is 80 plus. His songwriting is solid and he has selected some of the best standards in blues to croon over with his deep down feeling of cool. Billups is also a drummer, keeping the backbeat alluring and irresistible throughout this disc. Like many drummers from the old days, Billups is also a band leader, keeping a bus load of players on track, making sure he milks the talent out of each to get what he needs for each track.
Opening with his original “Everline,” Billups starts out with a backbeat that carries the whole tray of fine instrumentation. The feeling coming from that beat could have made any song good. Here, it’s the entrée in a movable feast. Guitar and harmonica prance around the groove with surefooted style while the short man himself sings it with a persistent soul, a feeling that the singer just has to get off his chest, which he does with cool self-restraint, keeping the emotion percolating just beneath the surface.
The second track is “Soul Serenade” by King Curtis, an instrumental that finds Jayo blowing a smooth, mellifluous line out of his alto sax. Jedekiahl Brown peppers it all with a pleasant drift from his organ swirls. Billups, meanwhile, applies a more classy, piano bar style beat, something that moves this cloud of soul like a warm summer breeze.
Slide guitar work from Boston’s Chris Stovall Brown cries out with emotion from beginning to end of Elmore James’ “Sky Is Crying.” Louis Mayhew layers harmonica blues over the song like he’s pouring hot, delicious gravy over something that’s already good. There is such a good chemistry between slide and harp that a listener feels like he’s awoken in blues heaven. Billups, too, delivers the goods at the microphone here. He has to, with that kind of talent moving around him. The short man sings it with more of his tasteful self-restraint, letting the natural richness of his voice carry the emotive qualities of this standard. He makes you picture a fellow looking down, miserable with the realization that his baby don’t love him no more.
Track four is another instrumental, “Louie’s Stomp,” a Billups original. Full of foot stomping beats, the other players pour all kinds of good stuff over the groove. Satoru Nakagawa presses out a greasy guitar line. Mayhew is back with a swaggering, full feeling harp line. Jayo is blowing a storm of alto sax notes and the whole thing is one big fun mess of blues.
“Shopping For Shoes Blues,” written by Billups manager-promoter Hattie Barrett and arranged by the short man himself, is a straight forward Chicago blues style ballad. Nakagawa walks it into the listener’s consciousness with his deep feeling lead guitar line, making one wonder where this song will take us. Felix Mawongo layers it all with a fine organ glide as Mayhew blows a force of nature harp line in the back drop. A Jayo sax line ushers in another wave of cool too. Amidst this slow boil of emotion, Billups croons through it all with a persistent sharpness, a voice that pierces the heart with its ability to make one feel what a song is all about. His woman was seen out shopping for shoes, with another man, and that ain’t too cool. That some cat had to suffer through this seems worth it to come up with this song.
Shor’ty Billups
“House Party #5 Blues Pt.1” grooves its way out of the stereo speakers like a traveling party looking for another bar or club to bring itself into. Billups croons in his deep down soulful way, a lot of expression in his voice, and this is just a party song. He sings like a tomcat on the prowl for some woman action, making a lot of hums, moans, and talking a lot of come on talk. His drum beat fortitude gives bass man Sam Mayhew the signals to play a striking groove which Jayo shines over, blowing out bits of screamy alto sax magic. It certainly doesn’t hurt to have Nakagawa(on loan from Tokyo Tramps) picking some feisty electric guitar lines around the vocal, giving this party tune some extra snap.
Title track “Young Woman ‘Ana’ Old Man,” written by Billups himself, is a shuffling whirl of harmonica gruel, guitar, and sax. Lee Lundy carries this on bass as much as Billups on the drums. Over their fine forward stomp is layered the magic dust from Nakagawa, Mayhew, Jayo, and Mawongo. Billups continues his plaintive, soulful plea to a younger woman to give him the charms associated with the youthful, nubile ones. Billups makes his case with his soulful rasp, and its likely that if the younger woman has any taste at all in good blues, he will have his way with her.
“House Party #5 Blues Pt.2” is a sequel to the party tune above with a similar title. Billups and his boys are talking enthusiastically about the young women passing by on the sidewalk. Some cat calls and some suggestive humming over a alto sax flavored melody is all it takes to make this one jump and jive.
Billups closes out his disc with Ray Schinnery’s “Talk About My Baby,” a down tempo blues ballad. The listener can savor the richness in Billups voice as the short man takes it slow, letting his voice ride up high and pretty before settling back down into his thicker, meaningful lower register. Surrounded by his fine ensemble, Billups gets a classy accompaniment worthy of his upscale tastefulness. His brings the heartache home with an on target vocal aim. One cannot merely sing the notes to this kind of music. One must also feel it and bring that feeling to the listeners. Billups is one of the last of the greats who can make a song come to three dimensional life with a thoughtful application of his voice.
Billups and his Foxxx Band have a lot to be proud of here. This nine track Young Woman “Ana” Old Man album jumps out of the stereo speakers with strikingly good vibes and blues flavor. Let’s hope this octogenarian lives to be a hundred. Judging by his tumescent enthusiasm for much younger woman, he’s healthy enough to get there.
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