Al Basile - Last Hand - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Eight-time Blues Music Award-nominated singer/songwriter/cornetist Al Basile announces his latest CD, Blues in Hand, on Sweetspot Records. This is AL's 21st on Sweetspot since 1998. After 2023's career retrospective B's Time, Al is back with all new songs and a new production team. Using his Duke Robillard and Roomful of Blues veteran players, and recorded by Jack Gauthier in the familiar surroundings of Westlake Recording studio in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, Al had combined Jack's great tracking with the most up-to-date technology by mixer and masterer Glenn Halverson at his Sonic Hill Studio in Ooltawah, Tennessee. The results are a new sound for Al's classic blues-roots songs.

Through With Cool is Al Basile's 19th solo artist , and the third he has produced. It features 14 new Al Basile songs, with a band comprised of current and former Duke Robillard Band and Roomful of Blues members, and adds BMA nominated best guitarist Kid Andersen to the mix, as in last year's B's Testimony. Al has 8 BMA nominations himself since 2010. His songwriting builds and and extends the whole of blues and roots traditions in a distinctive and accessible way, and his cornet solos come out of mainstream jazz but are adapted to the changing rhythms of contemporary blues.

Al Basile's first solo album follows his path as an original member of Roomful of Blues, featuring Duke Robillard and his band backing up Al's vocals on 12 of his blues and roots songs. Duke is the primary soloist in a group which features Marty Richards on drums, Marty Ballou on bass and Dave Limina on piano and B3. The songwriting emphasizes lyrics which tell stories, and Inchevery song is a nod to a particular musician or tradition, from the Smokey Robinson smoothness of 'Bite Your Tongue' (which was covered by blues legend Ruth Brown) to the B.B. King urban blues of 'What Your Kisses Say'.Inch New York Rock, Street Beat.