SONNY RHODES
“BORN TO BE BLUE”
KINGSNAKE RECORDS
With his turban, colorful outfits, and lap steel guitar, Sonny Rhodes is certainly a unique figure in modern blues.
Grounded in the tradition of Texas blues, Sonny cut his teeth along side blues greats such as Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland. In the 80’s he moved out to California and was a part of the bay area blues scene for many years. Now he lives in the Philadelphia area which has made him much more accessible to those of us in the northeast. Sonny continues to record for Kingsnake Records and this new disc is very good. However, there is one small problem with it that I’ll get to in a second.
There are 12 songs on this relatively short 43 minute disc. One of two ballads called “Five Day Rain” is a beautiful song with a weeping guitar and a sax accompaniment. Most of the other songs though have a harder edge to them than Sonny’s previous work.
It’s the final four tunes on the disc that are the Sonny Rhodes originals. “Satan” is a happy, melodic song where Sonny sings of having a better life because he’s left Satan behind. In “She’s My Woman” he sings about his Cadillac Deville and how only his woman gives him a better ride. “Love Don’t Get Old” is a heartfelt ballad with a contemporary theme. The closer “If I Had The Chance” has Sonny optimistically singing if he could do it all over again he wouldn’t change a thing. He’d still be playing the blues all over the USA.
Now, about that one small problem. Kingsnake Records is owned by Bob Greenlee who is one of the most respected people in the blues world. Bob is a multi-instrumentalist, a producer, and a prolific songwriter. The problem is he wants to write all the songs for all the Kingsnake musicians. Just recently he wrote 6 of the songs on vocalist Erica Guerin’s new CD. He wrote 10 of the songs on harpist Mark Hodgson’s new release. Now he has written 5 of the songs on this new Sonny Rhodes CD. This has been going on for years with Greenlee and now it’s gotten ridiculous. Enough already. I still recommend the disc. It’s not quite as good as Sonny’s 1994 release called “The Blues Is My Best Friend”, but it’s still a solid offering.
- Bill Harriman

***1/2