CD Woodbury Trio – Bulldog – CD3
He’s got the lyrics & the covers. His music can be effectively dark like the late John Campbell. The voice is 5-cigars rough but polished from three shots of straight whiskey. Old Crow. Seattle’s CD Woodbury has the necessary blues intonation for someone who didn’t live that life but understood every layer of its skin. The evil wisp of “Wicked Grin” is cool enough & the classic William Bell & Booker T. Jones tune “Born Under a Bad Sign” is closer to B.B. King & Buddy Guy than Creedence Clearwater Revival. The guitar work slips & slides without intruding on the performance, sharp & pristine. It becomes a duet partner & that in itself is ingenuity.
The surprise is Elvis Presley’s “Little Sister,” a Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman composition. The classic Presley pop-rock tune (1961) was always shaped to be smoked into a dirty little blues. Here, CD Woodbury does it quite well. It has bluesy humidity along with a strutting harmonica (Bill Davis) & heavy-duty bass line. This sparkles like a silver coin under the sun in a street of mud. Play it again.
There are 11 snarly, chained Bulldog (Drops April 24/Lightning In A Bottle Records/47:16) tracks that embody this contemporary collection produced by Woodbury, with Robert Baker (electric & upright bass/sound effects) & Bill Ray (drums). There’s some rudimentary novelty flavored blues (“Dollar Store Readers”), oh hum, which is typical of many blues albums, but this effort’s soft balls also come with the hard balls. Patience. Patience.
A cover of Cream’s classic Jack Bruce-Pete Brown tune “Politician” is laid down with Tom Waits grit & a predatory guitar, sleek & heavy. Quite good. A re-invention that works deliciously. CD isn’t as soulful as James Brown (who is?), but he does generate enough funkiness fumes with Brown’s old “I Got You (I Feel Good).” My elementary school teacher told me it’s bad grammar. I told them, that’s the point. CD ignites a good groove. Laid back from Brown but sincerely effective nonetheless, if not sounding like early J. Geils Band while cooking this stew.
Hard to top Cream’s cover of Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful,” but CD takes it down a more traditional route & his take is slinky, humid, brothel & reefer regalia. Smoky & with the addition of Mike Marinig’s flute (that’s creative), it creates a brief innocent blow while the guitar keeps it swabbed in whiskey & garters. Contrasting the double-gauge performance. This CD Woodbury, is high octane blues.
Highlights – “Wicked Grin,” “Born Under a Bad Sign,” “Little Sister,” “Politician,” “I Got You (I Feel Good),” & “Spoonful.”
Musicians – CD (electric, acoustic, slide & glass neck guitars/vocals) with Joel Astley (harmonica – “A Song In There”) & Jonathan Sayre (drums – “I Got You – I Feel Good”).
B&W image courtesy of CD’s website gallery. CD @ https://cdwoodbury.com/