Harmonica man and hearty singer Walter Daniels has hit the studio with Jack Oblivian on more than one prior occasion, with the recorded evidence frequently giving Daniels’ bluesy heft an infusion of garage punk grit. There is some of that on their latest collab, the 4-song EP “Sailing the Concrete Seas,” but as the title illuminates, there are also two versions of vintage truck-driving songs that are downright swank as they hit the ear. This 7-inch vinyl platter is available now as a split release between Black & Wyatt Records of Memphis, TN, and the Ghost Highway label of Madrid, Spain.
This short player spins at 33 1/3 rpm, and in extending the teamwork of Daniels and Oblivian, it can’t help but bring to mind the stuff they kicked out with former Gibson Bros manic Monsieur Jeffrey Evans. This is because back in 1990 the Gibson Bros (at that point still a four-piece) released a collab Punk Rock Truck Drivin’ Song of a Gun with the Workdogs (that’d be Rob Kennedy and Scott Jarvis), the LP’s title a direct reference to country singer Dave Dudley’s 1965 album Truck Drivin’ Son-Of-A-Gun.
Half of the contents of “Sailing the Concrete Seas” are versions of songs from that Dudley record, “I Got Lost,” written by noted country singer-songwriter Tom T. Hall, and “Two Six Packs Away,” a song credited to rockabilly cat Ronnie Self. “I Got Lost” works up a big-guitar groove halfway between a Nashville honky-tonk and an all-night Bakersfield diner, and that’s just killer. There’s a touch of Daniel’s mouth harp in the mix, but the blowing is harder and longer in the midst and also in the waning moments of “Two Six Packs Away.”
“Sailing the Concrete Seas” opens with a left-field cover of “Drugs Will Kill Me” by the obscure late ’70s Texas punk band Sharon Tate’s Baby, the song’s title shortened here to “Drugs.” The original is cool enough, but the version by Daniels and Oblivian is a bluesy, punky, lo-fi stomper that sets the table right proper for what’s to come.
The last track is a version of Danny Run Joe Taylor’s “You Look Bad,” a jump R&B nugget waxed for RCA Victor in 1953. The original is more than a bit reminiscent of something Willie Dixon might’ve penned for Willie Mabon during the same era. Daniels, Oblivian and the crew rock it up very nicely.
Who is the crew? It’s the Shieks, don’tcha know. That’s Graham Winchester on drums and piano, Frank McLallen on bass, Keith Cooper on guitar, and Seth Moody on tenor sax. Oblivian plays electric and acoustic guitar, and George Cartwright adds guitar to “I Got Lost” and “Two Six Packs Away.” In short, it’s a lineup of all-stars that’s dishing out these four tracks. It all goes down without a stumble.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
