Sonny Landreth’s Brilliance Captured

Posted on Jun 12, 2017 in Album Reviews

Read Our Review of Slide Guitarist Sonny Landreth’s ‘Recorded Live In Lafayette’

Sonny Landreth at New Orleans’ Jazz Fest

By Rob Dickens

If you have been to New Orleans for any length of time and particularly at the Jazz and Heritage Festival, you probably would have seen Sonny Landreth perform. One of the most hard-working musicians in Crescent City, he can be found regularly plying his slide guitar star turn.

Widely recognised by his peers as being one of the best slide guitarists anywhere, he has collaborated with the likes of Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler, Eric Johnson and Derek Trucks. Grammy-nominee Landreth has had a strong career, but is perhaps not as feted by the public outside his home State of Louisiana as he deserves.

After a dozen albums, Landreth was looking for a fresh move. And what a move he has made here with Recorded Live in LaFayette which is out 30 June 2017. He and his long-time have deftly combined a full-length acoustic collection (one his fans had long requested) with a strong desire to capture the electric excitement of his stalwart trio, augmented by a couple of his favorite collaborators.

Recorded Live in Lafayette is a sixteen-song opus with ninety minutes of full-band acoustic and electric bottleneck lightning craft. Hats off to Landreth’s long-time trio collaborators here – Dave Ranson (bass and background vocals) and Brian Brignac (drums, percussion and background vocals), plus the special guests – Steve Conn (keyboard and accordion) and Sam Broussard (guitars). They all deserve a mention as the artistic vibe on this record is sensational.

Produced by Landreth and Tony Daigle, the double CD and vinyl release on Provogue includes the most extensive acoustic set ever recorded by Landreth, with some tunes dating back to the 1981 title cut of his debut album ‘Blues Attack’.

Says Landreth: “It gives you a chance to explore those songs in a different way,”…“The familiarity is there, but I also wanted to turn those guys loose as much as possible.”

The double album arrives on the heels of the Grammy nominee’s back-to-back Blues Music Awards for Best Guitarist and Best Blues Album for Bound by the Blues (2015). Key tracks for me are: ‘Blues Attack’, ‘A World Away’, ‘Bound By The Blues’, ‘True Blue’, ‘Brave New Girl’ and the closing ‘The One and Only Truth’.

The result is a fitting career-spanning double-live album which captures the breadth and elegant sweep of Sonny Landreth’s talents in the middle of a smokin’ Louisianan blues outfit. Brilliant.

Check out the acoustic version of ‘Blues Attack’