Sugar Ray & the Bluetones - Macallè Blues

Tuesday July 7 th 2015: let's be always to Celle Ligure (Italy), to the first edition of the Boom! CELLE BLUES FESTIVAL. Here is about to climb on the stage, as the star of the evening, one of the best traditional blues band of the planet, Sugar Ray & the Bluetones; and this of Celle Ligure is their only Italian date. Indeed a sin that no other organizer of blues festival in Italy hasn't taken advantage of their presence on the territory to put them into a programming: so, praise to the Boom! and let's feel us, therefore, the privileged ones to assist to their exhibition. To tell the truth, Sugar Ray is not new at all to the italic ground; notes are, in fact, his collaborations with Maurizio Pugno and partners. This, nevertheless, is the first time that we can listen to him with his regular band and, therefore, in his natural habitat, so to say. After thirtyfive years on the scene, he boasts of collaborations with whoever, from Ronnie Earl to Duke Robillard, from Otis Grand to the Roomfuls of Blues, band he has been front man of too for seven years. Endowed with a crooner voice, Sugar Ray was born as harpist and author, over that singer. His lyrics, often ironic and witty, can make the pair with those of other harpists-authors-singers of analogous sort as the lamented Paul DeLay or Mark DuFresne. We have had demonstration of his writing skills during the concert of Celle Ligure: the Things Could Be Worse, taken back by the last album Living Teat to Tear has been a bright example of it. Versatile, so much to be passed with enviable lightness from the chromatic harmonica to the diatonic one with the punctual support of the solid rhythmics of Neil Gouvin and Michael "Mudcat" Ward as well as from the piano man Anthony Geraci. The true musical charm of this band, besides the enviable cohesion, it manifests in the rare molecular alchemy that one can perceive between Monster Mike Welch's guitar and Sugar Ray himself. Welch's guitar, of nervous, diabolic  intensity, works grandiosely in magic contrast with the confidential song and the velvety harmonica of Sugar Ray. What reaches the listener is the intimate cohesion of the group and the solistic woodpeckers of the two main protagonists. As third aims, every now and then, Anthony's Geraci magistral piano. Despite they had to leave for the States around 3 A.M. in the following morning, the exhibition has been generous and the encore not absolutely skimps at all. Unmissable, for who was not here, to the next one, before occasion!  G.R.