CD Review by Maggie Woods | Sugar Blue: Code Blue

Sugar Blue Code Blue [album]

“Hyped-up blues with
soulful, jazzy notes that
were born in America
and a sprinkling of
ragtime to lift the spirits...
you know instantly that
Sugar Blue has arrived...”

IF MICK JAGGER SAYS YOU'RE TALENTED, then I guess you are. They don't come much bigger than the front man of The Rolling Stones and he is not alone in applying the 'T' word to Sugar Blue.

Sugar Blue's new album, Code Blue, is like a melodious tsunami as wave after wave of the most agreeable music rushes to be heard. This is the happening man with an amazing voice and a bucket full of credentials that make his appearances all the more valuable.

Not many artistes can claim to have truly mastered their art form. But here is living proof; straight from the mouths of those who know, that Sugar Blue is one. A legend in his own timeline, this Grammy Award-winning harmonica playing and much revered musician has skipped over the pond to the UK to follow the culture trail.

One of the foremost blues harp musicians of his generation — and indeed this century — Sugar Blue's association with The Rolling Stones is perhaps his best known work, featuring on classic Stones' albums Some Girls, Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You. The list of Sugar Blue's musical collaborators and luminaries reads like a who's who of rock 'n' roll legends and includes Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan, Willie Dixon, Stan Getz and Junior Wells.

Sugar Blue live

Sugar Blue has shared stages with the likes of Muddy Waters, BB King and Art Blakey and has accompanied Fats Domino, Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis in the Cinemax special, Fats Domino and Friends. When you speak of Sugar Blue, you know you are speaking of a pure, unadulterated musical pedigree.

In 1985, this pedigree won Sugar Blue a Grammy Award for his work on the Atlantic album Blues Explosion — an album recorded live at the Montreux Jazz Festival. He also performed on Willie Dixon's 1989 Grammy Award-winning album Hidden Charms.

Sugar Blue's music is a warm and exciting recipe — with just enough hot chilli pepper thrown in to heat up the action from time to time. Stylish, exotic and accomplished.

The publicity machine says: Sugar Blue pours all his experiences and influences into a visionary and singular style. Technically dazzling yet wholly soulful; he bends, shakes and spills flurries of notes with simultaneous precision and abandon, combining dazzling technique with smouldering expressiveness, giving off enough energy to light up Las Vegas. Through his musical endeavours, Sugar Blue has forged a modern style of Blues that is instantly recognisable as his own.

Previous tours and live gigs have seen Sugar Blue play to hundreds of thousands of music and blues fans all over the world; taking in venues and festivals all over America, Europe and Africa. Music fans will be delighted to hear that Sugar Blue will be playing two ultra-rare UK appearances on a 30-date world tour — a tour covering all corners of the United States and far-reaching parts of Europe that supports the release of his latest album.

• Sugar Blue's CD album, Code Blue, is now out on Beeble Music.

Code Blue Tracklisting

1 Krystalline | 2 Chicago Blues | 3 Bluesman | 4 Walking Alone |
5 Cold-Blooded Man | 6 Nola | 7 Bad Boys Heaven | 8 Let It Go |
9 Shed No Tears | 10 I Don't Know Why | 11 High You Can't Buy

"He is a very strange and talented musician" — Mick Jagger

"Hyped-up blues with soulful, jazzy notes that were born in America and a sprinkling of ragtime to lift the spirits" — MotorBar

"A powerful and fluent harmonica player who is also an effective and heartfelt singer in addition to being a superior writer of blues-oriented songs" — Billboard

"One of the foremost harmonica blowers in all of modern blues" — Rolling Stone

Check out sug ar-blue.com.

Sugar Blue plays Deep Blues Club, York, on 1 April and The Borderline, London on 2 April 2008. Support comes in the form
of the highly-regarded Elio D'Anna Jr and Vmana.

Sugar Blue says: "Code Blue was inspired by my life in crisis and the race to save myself from the anger, frustration and self-destruction that allowed my demons to run rampant.

"I, like many of you, have been appalled, frightened and ashamed by current events. We are seeing the world tear itself apart and we wring our hands, staring stupefied at the news reports as we become inured to slaughter, famine and the destruction of the ecology!

"I'm a bluesman; I don't pretend to have the insight to solve or predict the challenges we face but I know we must do all we can!

"Some of the songs focus on these things. It's what I can do: write and sing about the life and feelings we all share, the good times and the bad, the happy and the sad. I hope these songs will move you to jump and enjoy, as well as to perhaps sit and reflect. I love this music because it has always touched me in places I would not have known were there if not for the sounds, soul and passions that are The Blues.

"I hope that you like what you hear… and if it moves you, that's what it's all about!" — Sugar Blue

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