Billy Hector
Old School Thang
Ghetto Surf Music
Red Hot and Dirty Rhythm and Blues
Some days I just love how the internet makes the music world into a small village with neighbours passing on hints and tips. This is a case in point; Billy Hector comes from Noo Joisey and has released 11 albums to date; but nothing outside the US of A then a nice man from Swedish music distributors Hemifran read one of my reviews and contacted me. Subsequently a package containing 20 albums arrived!
With the best will in the world I had to ‘judge a book by the cover’ and pulled four out for investigation. One was average, two good in parts and this one blew my bloody socks off!
This is the Blues just the way I like them….dirty, dusty and from the heart.
As usual I played the album a couple of times before I read the Press Release and it came as no big surprise to find Billy had been in Hubert Sumlin and Joe Louis Walker’s touring bands!
Opening with the the slow and funky She’s Gone I was immediately enamoured. Hector has a leatherette, world weary voice and plays the guitar just like Johnny Winter and at times; Stevie Ray Vaughan plus his band are smokin’!
Certainly no one-trick pony, like so many other Bluesmen Hector treats us to some cool down home Country Blues on Fake ID and Come on Home; but also takes the urban end of Chicago by the lapels and gives it a good shake on mean and nasty Evil, Slick & Sly!
Just when you think you’ve got a handle on Hector’s style he throws a wonderful curve ball with a bit of Jump and Jive with the dancetastic Rita. Who among us wouldn’t love a woman who scratchers her number into your bedroom wall with a cut throat razor?
Then it’s immediately back to the old school Blues with the low down and mellow Short and Sweet Blues; which could easily be mistaken for a lost George Benson instrumental. Guitar playing doesn’t get much better than this.
Billy cheekily ‘keeps the best until last’ with the eight minute People of the World which allows the brass section their moment in the sun as he picks a mean and funky guitar and an organ grooves like a cat on heat. If ever Quentin Tarantino re-makes the Cleopatra Jones movies I think I’ve found the soundtrack.
Obviously with his back catalogue and history with those two legends Billy Hector will already have a lot of fans; but I’m guessing a lot of people reading this review will soon have their new favourite Bluesman.
Released September 2015
The Rocking Magpie 