Leonard 'Lowdown' Brown - Street Party (2025)

Jimbo Mathus admits he did not need to do much to get ready to record Street Party, the second album by Houston guitarist Leonard 'Lowdown' Brown. After all, Brown, 71, was raised in a musical Indiana family, his enthusiasm for his instrument and playing at large an inheritance. For the last dozen years, he's tracked rather comprehensive demos in his makeshift home studio, adding all the elements himself with his own big mixer. When Mathus called Brown in the summer of 2024, he soon dispatched 10 songs, almost all fully arranged. When Brown arrived at Music Maker's North Carolina studio in September, the band Mathus built started early for each of three days and cut almost everything with first takes and very few overdubs. 'I got to sit back and play some rhythm guitar,' Mathus says, laughing. 'Leonard had it ready.'

Indeed, Street Party feels like a chronicle of Brown's life. The jubilant, funky title track recalls those bygone times in the rural outskirts of Gary, when Brown and his barbecuing buddies would throw down at the end of the block. Bluesy and spirited, 'Houston Bound' chronicles his southbound move in 1981, when his job with General Electric sent him to Texas; his dual Jazzmaster solos, curling and prowling, suggest all the adventures he found. And with a solid rhythmic backbone built by John Kveen and Kirk Russell, 'Don't Wanna Get Up Blues' shares the kind of morning moment we've all had when sleep sounds so much better than sunshine, whether last night's party or the day's headlines are the problem. But Lowdown shakes away the blues with some harmonies from The Crimestoppers, his soulful hooks, and a string of sharp, joyous licks.