Kenny Hughes - Born & Raised (2024)

Blues music is in our blood because South Africans can resonate with pain in music. We relate to a scratched and dented electric guitar, being played by a man with long hair and on his breath. Artists like Black Cat Bones, Evert Snyman and Albert Frost have paved the way for new blues rockers like Kenny Hughes to take his place in the spotlight – and his new album Born and Raised is a collection of songs written over a seven year period.

The album has an almost pop-blues sound to it, if that even exists. The rock influence is woven into the album smoothly but the main focus is vocals, a guitar twang synonymous with blues rock and a complimentary rhythm section that allows the vocals to do the heavy lifting.

The album opens with “All Over Me” a solid rock track that sets a tone of consistency for the rest of the album. The three-part harmony on “She knows” is unexpected but plays well into the production of the album overall. Later on, the pacing slows down with “Wicked Ways” which is more jazzy than anything else, it breaks up the album nicely into two parts

The album is produced by industry stalwarts Evert Snyman and Albert Frost. The track “Midnight Man” shows the production excellently, a well-balanced well written blues-rock song that sum’s up Kenny’s song writing and needs to be listened to more than once to be appreciated. While “Blues Truth” is a stand alone track, showing depth, soul and pain that one would expect from an artist of Kenny’s caliber. ~Mike Bower