Egidio Juke Ingala & The Jacknives - Switcharoo (2017)

Tracklist

01. Can't Get You off My Mind
02. She Got Me
03. Money Takin' Mama
04. I Don't Know Baby
05. Hold out Mama
06. Seasick and Waterbound
07. Treat Me so Bad
08. I Was Your Fool
09. Cornbread and Caviar
10. Crying and Pleading
11. Little Ann
12. Miss Daisy
13. Feel so Bad
14. Sleeping Beauty

In every city, town and hamlet in the world, there are a few people who are just a little different. From a little fishing village in southern Brazil to a factory town in the Ukraine there is someone, maybe even three or four like-minded individuals, who speak an esoteric, universal language. From Stockholm to Los Angeles, from Chicago to Milan and Bologna here are people, not many mind you, who communicate in this unwritten dialect. It is the language of the blues. Just for sake of clarification, I’m not talking about “blues-rock” that ugly, coarse, rather juvenile, bastardized way of communicating, but…real blues. In northern Italy, there are four gentlemen who speak this language and have for many years. They are known as Egidio “Juke” Ingala and the Jacknives. The four individuals who make up this band have naturally gravitated to one another. Their love for the blues and mutual commitment to presenting this music to the public the right way is so deeply ensconced in their collective consciousness that any deviation from the truth that lies in the heart of this music would be tantamount to blasphemy.

They are of course Egidio, as well as guitarist Marco Gisfredi, bassist Max Pitardi and the great Enrico “Henry” Soverini on drums. This ensemble has been called the Italian Aces. I don’t think that is really much of a stretch as these guys are cut from that same bolt of cloth. Think about that as you listen to this album. How many guitar players really understand how to play behind a harmonica for instance like Louis Meyers or Marco? How many drummers understand the various blues shuffles that Fred Below incorporated into the music of Junior Wells and Muddy Waters for instance? Enrico does and he brings that to the bandstand and the recording studio every time.

Then we have the album’s producer, Little Victor – who also guests on a few numbers. He is a vagabond, globetrotting raconteur roaming the countryside in search of that “sound.” An accomplished and highly acclaimed traditional blues musician his own right, he is always putting his skills to work getting like-minded individuals into the recording studio.He even found the great Carl “Sonny” Leyland, who is a British ex-pat living in the middle of nowhere in the California hinterland at an undisclosed location. Victor and Carl’s resumes and recording credits are as long as my arm. Suffice it to say their inclusion here is just perfect.

As the late, great Lynwood Slim used to say, “Blues music is the universal language.” Thanks to Egidio “Juke” Ingala & the Jacknives I get to hear it spoken articulately.

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