Monster Mike Welch - Keep Living Til I Die (2025)

Former child prodigy and stalwart guitarist for New England’s long-running Sugar Ray and the Blue Tones, Monster Mike Welch returns with his sixth solo album, Keep Living Til I Die out August 8th. Like he did on 2023’s BMA-nominated Nothing But Time, Welch works with Kid Andersen, who produced, recorded, mixed, and mastered the album. This time, however, Welch works with his core unit rather than the Greaseland session players. They are keyboardist Brooks Milgate, bassist Brad Hallen, and drummer Fabrice Bessouat. Welch is a multiple BMA winner and nominee who was given the nickname ‘Monster Mike’ by actor Dan Aykroyd at the age of 13.

The album title reflects at least two key events. Welch is a survivor of long COVID and just emerged from witnessing his mother’s declining health and eventual passing. Most of the songs were written during that period. The theme of the album revolves around a defiant life, so while mortality is present in some songs, the ‘keep living” part gets more focus. Welch either penned or co-wrote with Nick David six of these thirteen tracks. Welch also puts his stamp on tunes from Rick Estrin, Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Robert Johnson, and unearths surprising sources for others.

Welch bursts out firing on his 30-year-old custom Strat, bending notes and letting them resonate on the shuffling title track. Welch has made a career of ceding the vocals to another band member, but he surely sounds convincing and passionate enough in that role here. His guitar burns hot, backed by Milgate’s swirling organ. “Love Me Baby’ follows the chord pattern of the classic “Rock Me Baby,” a medium-slow blues that’s right in his wheelhouse, with blazing guitar lines. It’s a tune about getting it on with your lover, with lines such as “love me baby like we’re running from the law.” Welch and the band lock into a strutting groove on “Your Problem to Solve,” his guitar doing the talking every bit as much as the lyrics centered on a need to be honest.

A standout is Welch’s instrumental take on Aretha Franklin’s “Good to Me As I Am to You,” a slow blues gem, inspired by the Otis Rush version of the tune. Welch admits that it’s probably his best guitar playing on record. That’s saying something! He takes on Robert Johnson’s “Hell Hound on My Trail,” a tune typically done solo by other blues artists. Hearing it in a full band arrangement is somewhat revelatory. Welch powerfully belts out the vocal as if the demons are intent on chasing him down. Sticking with that theme, he turns to one of the best contemporary writers, with a scorching interpretation of Rick Estrin’s “I Finally Hit Bottom,” which speaks to rebounding from the dark times. As a fan of Bob Dylan’s oft-overlooked melodies, Welch waxes rather smooth on “Dear Landlord,” with great support from Milgate on multiple keys. He revisits a Sugar Ray and Blue Notes tune, “Burial Season,” written by Mudcat Ward, to close out the album. It’s a slow blues with Welch singing in a falsetto style that practically matches his haunting guitar tones, as he aptly sings about personal losses.

Mortality is also on his mind with “Do What You Want With My Grave,” a play of sorts on Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” as he gives the tune a sweaty, wall-rattling guitar workout. Interestingly, on the upbeat shuffle “She Makes Time,” he switches to a different guitar for the only time, using the legendary Slim Harpo Gibson 330. There’s a discernible difference in the sound. His high-pitched guitar sounds especially bright on “The Whole Idea of You,” a song that benefits from the Jordanaires-styled backing vocals by Marcel Smith and Dennis Dove.

Welch must be a musicologist of early British music, as he has two entries here. The perky minor key blues ballad “I Just Don’t Understand” was originally recorded in Nashville by Ann Margret and covered by the Beatles at the BBC. It’s uncanny how he weaves his expressive guitar into essentially a pop song with Lisa Leuschner Andersen, John Blues Boyd, and himself in the background choir. Similarly, “Some Other Guy” is a Ray Charles-styled tune rendered by every British beat combo in 1962, a feature for Milgate’s Wurlitzer piano.

Welch has long established himself as one of the best axemen in blues, and his vocals improve on each outing. These combine to make Keep Living Til I Die his most fully realized album to date. ~Jim Hynes