Jake Shimabukuro & Mick Fleetwood – Blues Experience
The album art is a little too bright to suggest the deep-seated blues that incorporate this showcase. Sonny Landreth is featured on the opening piece “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers” & that begins the 9-track Blues Experience (Drops Oct 18/JS Records/Forty Below/45:22) as produced by Jake Shimabukuro (incredible ukelele, yes you heard me right) & Mick Fleetwood (drummer & co-founder of Fleetwood Mac).
The instrumental is searing & blistering. Balanced quite well & what I mean is that it doesn’t jam & go off on tangents. Landreth penetrates the slow blues & provides not the fire as much as the smoke. I say smoke because his notes linger, drift like smoke in the air you thought you expelled – no, it’s there, it’s still there — like a ghost. The flames will come later with that remarkable ukelele. It’s a setup for the incisive numbers to come.
This is an all-instrumental adventure. All tracks except for cut #1 featuring Landreth sound like a lead guitar but it’s a ukelele — on what? Blues songs, familiar rock tunes & all with thematic surprises. “Rollin’ N Tumblin’” is a vintage Hambone Willie Newbern 1929 Delta-blues standard that has been redesigned endlessly by artists. Muddy Waters, the rock group Cream, Canned Heat, Johnny Winter & most recently Bob Dylan. Elvis converted the melody entirely into “Tiger Man” for commercial purposes. Here, Shimabukuro & Fleetwood render it bluesy in their unique way.
The classic Little Willie John tune from 1955 “Need Your Love So Bad,” which was done excellently in 1969 by Tracy Nelson’s Mother Earth & Fleetwood Mac itself in 1968 is slowed down into a guitar-aching beauty for this set & adds an electrifying piano current that’s purifying.
You’d think this application wouldn’t work on a dark song like “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” but it does. The delicate qualities are pivotal. The ever-present Procol Harum organ is present. Shimabukuro & Fleetwood brush away the dust on this classic song & add shivers of enjoyment.
One of Neil Young’s better songs “Rockin’ In the Free World,” gets its skin peeled back as a slick, heavy & impressive interpretation by these musicians. It swaggers out of the speakers as quite a pulsating instrumental rocker. A masterful example of what Shimabukuro & Fleetwood can whip out of their magician’s hats.
The uke & drums on this song are what rock aficionados wait for. These musicians & this album delivers.
Highlights – “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers,” “Rollin’ N Tumblin,’” “Need Your Love So Bad,” “Kula Blues,” “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” “Rockin’ In the Free World” & “Songbird.”
Musicians – Jackson Waldhoff (bass), Michael Grande & Mark Johnstone (keys).
Image of Jake Shimabukuro courtesy of Sienna Morales. Mick Fleetwood color image courtesy of Daniel Sullivan. CD @ https://jakeshimabukuro.com/blog/2024/07/17/jake-shimabukuro-mick-fleetwood-blues-experience/