D'Mar & Gill - Take It Like That (2015)

Tracklist

01. Fell in Love With the Blues (feat. Bob Welch, Lisa Andersen, Aki Kumar & Kid Andersen)
02. Back to Paradise
03. Song for Honeyboy (feat. Jerry Jemmott & Kid Andersen)
04. Souvenir of the Blues (feat. Jerry Jemmott & Kid Andersen)
05. Dancin' Girl (feat. Kid Andersen)
06. You Never Know
07. Three Way Inn (feat. Kid Andersen & Lisa Andersen)
08. Must Be Love (feat. Kid Andersen & Bob Welch)
09. Take It Like That (feat. Jerry Jemmott, Kid Andersen & Lisa Andersen)
10. Sweet Tooth (feat. Lisa Andersen)
11. Lonesome for Leaving (feat. Kid Andersen)
12. Tore Down and Blue (feat. Jerry Jemmott, Kid Andersen & Bob Welch)
13. Since I Saw You (feat. Jerry Jemmott & Frankie Ramos)

Drummer Derrick “D’Mar” Martin and singer/guitarist Chris Gill live in a musical land of timeless sights and sounds. Like a trip back to where the blues began, the duo creates a big sound proving less really is more. The follow-up to their stunning debut Real Good Friends (2011) goes straight to the heart, body and soul.

Thirteen original compositions also feature Jerry “The Groovemaster” Jemmott (bass), Chris “Kid” Andersen (bass, guitar), Lisa Andersen (background vocals), Bob Welsh (piano and B-3 organ), Aki Kumar (harmonica) and Frankie Ramos (sax). “I Fell in Love with the Blues” jumps exuberantly as Gill belts “I fell in love with the blues, I got ‘em bad, worse than any woman a man ever had. I go crazy, that’s what I do, when I can’t get me those rhythm and blues.” Ominous Delta guitar riffs underpin the serious “Back to Paradise” with “Bombs shatter life’s fragile balance. Hunger in the streets. Children learning talents they don’t teach in school, that ain’t the golden rule.” “Song for Honeyboy” rolls like the Southern Railway, Gill sliding and proclaiming “I got a real good friend, travel with me everywhere… From Mississippi to California, just me and my ol’ guitar.”

On the evocative minor key “Souvenir of the Blues” Gill laments “It’s way past midnight, broke down thinking about you (2x). I’m laid out in this dirty alley, a souvenir of the blues.” He paints another memorable word picture on the lusty “Dancin’ Girl” with “Paradise struttin’ at midnight, tight dress, long legs swingin’ in the heat. She was movin’ in the blue light, seem to make her whole body just flow,” turning the heat up with his cigar box guitar. Gill yearns “Want to take you in my arms, catch up nice and slow. The way I miss my woman, don’t nobody know” on the gentle pastoral ballad “You Never Know.”

“Three Way Inn” swings and swigs like the thirties with “…the big leg woman drinkin’ all my wine. When the sun comes up in the morning and it looks like I had died… you can tell by the smell, I had myself a good time.” Gill bemoans “Yeah, I think she been foolin’ with voodoo, must be down there in New Orleans, you know, I’m like a puppet under her spell, man, I been hoodooed” on the hypnotic, laconic “Must Be Love.” Funky, Caribbean rhythms sway the title track beneath “There’s beauty in the Delta. Just kickin’ back by the river. There’s magic in your curves, I tell ya, yeah, only the full moon will deliver.” “Sweet Tooth” references ragtime, using a creative metaphor “I got a craving on like never before, can’t find it down at the candy store. A little sugar’s what I crave, I hope it don’t take me to my early grave.”

“Lonesome for Leaving” is low down with a classic hook “I’m a rollin’ man, don’t ask me where I’m from ‘cause I come from where I been” with Gill sliding on his cigar box guitar. The jazzy, minor key “Tore Down and Blue” is his heaviest “cry of love” as Gill intones painfully “These blues, they all around. Oh man, they just draggin’ me down.” “Since I Saw You” ends hopefully with the sweet alto sax of Ramos, and Gill optimistically sharing “Everything’s just been so wrong, why these hard roads so long? Through the blue fog I think I hear a new song, since I saw you.”

D’Mar & Gill utilize their staggering skill set to inhabit the blues from deep inside for unsurpassed emotional and musical expression. It is a lasting contribution to the enjoyment and understanding of the great American cultural treasure.

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