Bob Jones and the Drive - Michael and Me (2010)

Tracklist

01. Mike's Intro
02. Backroad
03. Blue Movies
04. Minglewood Blues
05. Lollipop Mama
06. Knocking Myself Out
07. Mary Ann
08. Corrina
09. Raising Cane
10. Blues From A Westwide
11. Do Me
12. Women Loving Each Other
13. Too Much Smoke
14. Cigarettes and Coffee
15. Guitar King

Bob Jones played drums on what is arguably Michael's best album (Michael Bloomfield and Friends – Live at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West) and went on to play with him for the final ten years of his career. You can hear that Michael And Me was mostly recorded live in the studio with crack players (Jimi Bott, Greg Marsh, etc.) and yet the recording quality transcends a mere live document thanks to the painstaking care taken by the engineer. The album’s performances benefit from both the rich cache of material culled from Bob's touring years with Michael in the 70s, and Bob Jones’ remarkable vocals. The latter cannot be emphasized enough – this is not just another record of killer guitar jams over pedestrian backing tracks. Michael himself compared Bob to Otis Redding when he first heard him, and it is this that firmly plants Michael and Me on the same level as the very best classic blues albums. As if that weren’t enough, the album also features guest appearances by Bloomfield Band mainstays Nick Gravenites and Mark Naftalin,

The album was originally the idea of Nils Rosenblad, a Bloomfield aficionado who learned his first guitar licks (at 9!) from the Butterfield albums. But it soon caught fire in the hearts and minds of Bob and the rest of the members of The Drive. Nils plays most of the lead guitar on the album and the chemistry between he and Bob is the driving force behind the project.

Michael and Me is a return to a style of playing and recording that has been almost completely lost in the modern age of ProTools and overdubbing. It is this authenticity and traditional methodology that makes the album 'fresh' and a great modern recording that can compete with the originals from back in the day on their own terms. Michael and Me will remind people that the style of blues that informed their earliest experiences with the genre did not end in 1958, or '68, or even '87, as well as inspire and astound every new generation of Blues and Americana fans that have come along since then.

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