(Modern Electric Blues) Phantom Blues Band - Inside Out - 2011, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

The Phantom Blues Band was formed as a studio band to backup Taj Mahal on his CD, ‘Dancing’ the Blues’.
Their association with Taj led to headlining clubs, theatres and festivals throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan and being honored with two Grammys and a W.C.Handy Blues Award.

Their Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma musical roots have afforded them well in their decades as Hollywood studio musicians, recording with many notable recording artists including Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Rolling Stones, Taj Mahal, Joe Cocker, Jimi Hendrix, Etta James, Elton John, Leon Russell, Little Feat, and B.B. King.

At heart, The Phantom Blues Band’s sound is a cross-breeding of many different musical styles which includes Blues, Jazz, R&B, Gospel, Rock and Roll and Reggae.

With ‘Inside Out’, the band’s third CD, all the elements of their collective experience as players, producers and composers come together as they pay homage to their musical heroes and push forward with exciting new music. Their take on several old 1950’s R&B chestnuts is refreshing in it’s originality.

‘Inside Out’ features band members Tony Braunagel, Larry Fulcher, Mike Finnigan, Darrell Leonard, Joe Sublett and Johnny Lee Schell with a little help from world renowned session players Lenny Castro on percussion and Crusader founding member and keyboard player Joe Sample.

This is music that goes down deep inside your heart and soul.

Chip Eagle : "Largely Unheralded Group Creates A Timeless Blues Album" (BluesWax Rating: 9.75 !)

I don’t know about other reviewers, but it’s a lot harder for me to review an album that I really like. We want to provide real information for our readers, who by-and-large are much more knowledgeable than the average music listener (and usually this writer, too!).

That said, I really, really like this album. It is so good, in so many ways, delivering so many perfectly-performed styles, that I’d feel pretty comfortable just saying, “Go get this and you won’t be sorry.” The end. Byline.

If you’re not familiar with the Phantom Blues Band, you probably actually are because you’ve probably heard them, collectively or individually, on stage or on CDs. Nowadays, when Taj Mahal needs a band, he calls on the Phantoms – like he has for the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise (LRBC) this past January and on more than a dozen previous cruises. In fact, the current Mahal backups, except for keyboardist Mike Finnigan and bass player Larry Fulcher, were originally assembled by Mahal for his 1993 album Dancing the Blues.

The latest Phantoms group chose the January LRBC to announce their new album, Inside Out, and those onboard had the opportunity to get one. Its official release is this week.

The Phantoms are actually a band of bandleaders – any one of them could easily front their own group, and most have. Finnigan, who sings a lot of the leads and plays masterful keyboards, is the sort-of, defacto leader, I think. My own experience with Mr. Finnigan goes back to 1968 or ‘69 when I heard his band from Wichita, Kansas, The Serfs, play at a beer joint in Emporia. I was 18 and he was already a rising star, at least in the eyes of us Kansas college kids.

I was probably directed to the show by my great friend and music lover, Suz, who was a lifelong Finnigan devotee. A brilliant biologist and reference librarian from a small town near Wichita, she even had this complex explanation of how her or her relatives were related to him. (I never could quite get it and when I tried to explain it to Finnigan on the cruise, he laughed and quipped that “I might be related to a lot of people that I don’t know”.)

Suz totally loved blues music, was a truly great person and one of my very best friends. Sadly, she passed away just a few days ago. A real loss to the world. She would have been excited that I’m writing about Finnigan and the Phantoms. So this one’s for you, Suz!

Back to the Phantoms; for the last 45 years Finnigan has been performing with some of the biggest names in the business, including the fan-favorite Finnigan and Wood, Dave Mason, Etta James, Dr. John, Carlos Santana, and Joe Cocker – as well as with Mahal and Bonnie Raitt, whom he will be touring with this summer. He also famously played organ on “Rainy Day Dream Away” and “Still Raining Still Dreaming” on Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland in 1968.

There’s Tony Braunagel on the drums, from Houston, who has played with Eric Burdon, Rickie Lee Jones, Bette Midler, and Raitt. He produced Mahal’s Grammy-winning Shoutin’ in Key; last year’s Wrong Side of the Blues from Trampled Under Foot, which is currently nominated for three BMA awards; and, co-produced Curtis Salgado’s just-released Soul Shout. Oh, and he’s Robert Cray’s regular drummer, too, and on the LRBC he triple-dipped, also drumming with Coco Montoya.

Handling guitar and many vocal duties for the Phantoms is Johnny Lee Shell, who also produced Inside Out. Shell always looks like he’s getting away with something when he’s performing – with a twinkle in his eye and a big grin – like he’s having more fun than he deserves to have. He’s yet another Texan who learned the ropes working with Buddy Holly’s producer Norman Petty. Shell lead the band Baby, and has toured with Raitt, The Bump Band, Ron Wood, and John Fogerty.

Shell also runs Ultra Tone Studios where the Phantom’s CD was recorded, and he recently recorded and mixed Little Feat’s latest.

Fulcher is the bass player and frequent vocalist on Inside Out. He has recorded with Smokey Robinson and The Crusaders, and toured and recorded with reggae artists The Wailers, Third World, and Andrew Tosh. He was a featured vocalist on the Emmy Award-winning ABC-TV series I’ll Fly Away.

Then there is the terrific horn section – individually Darrell Leonard on trumpet and Joe Sublett on saxophone, together the Texacali Horns. Another pair of Texas transplants, they got together first in 1989 to record on Stevie Ray Vaughan’s In Step, which won the Grammy for Best Contemporary Blues CD. Leonard then spent time touring with Delaney and Bonnie before working with Dr. John, Mahal, Raitt, Elton John, Leon Russell, Glenn Frey, and Little Feat. A master arranger, Leonard’s work has been featured on recordings by Randy Newman, Vaughan, Mahal, B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Keb Mo, and Raitt. And he’s featured on the new Bruce Springsteen CD, Wrecking Ball.

Sublett started his career in Austin with Paul Ray and The Cobras, which included a twenty-one year old Stevie Ray Vaughn. He has played on albums by The Rolling Stones, Mahal, Vaughan, Los Lonely Boys, Keb Mo, Bono, Little Feat, Raitt, B.B. King, Macy Gray, The Black Crowes, Buddy Guy, The Crickets, and Bette Midler. The Texacali Horns have their own CD, and have appeared on more than seventy-five albums.

With all that talent and experience, you might expect Inside Out to be good. Well, it is. Or you might expect that so many accomplished artists would clash and not be able to put out a cohesive set. Not even close. Together, the Phantoms are loose and totally egoless, journeymen performers working together perfectly to create a timeless blues CD. The stereotypical “well-oiled machine.”

There are thirteen cuts and just over fifty minutes of music. Save for a couple songs, this CD still solidly qualifies as blues, though it stretches the genre in all directions. If you wanted to critique at all, you might say that Inside Out tries to do too much. There are so many different rhythms and arrangements that it’s almost aural overload, each tune demanding a new set of ears to notice it, and appreciate it. And it all succeeds splendidly.

Much credit for that goes to Shell’s excellent oversight in structuring the album. He seemed a little apprehensive when we spoke – “I really hope people like it.” – but he needn’t have been, because his structure, like the songs themselves, was very well performed.

There are a variety of excellent blues rockers, shuffles, boogies, and other “upbeat” tunes on Inside Out. That includes the opener, Smokey McCallister’s “I Can’t Stand It,” about the singer not being able to handle losing his main squeeze – And when I hear you say/That you will go away/And leave me someday/I can’t stand it.

The swinging “Having a Good Time with the Blues,” co-written by Shell, features his tasty honky-tonk guitar, and the hard-rocking “Boogah Man” reminded me of a piano-driven rockabilly group like Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen. I was impressed by Finnigan’s vocal power and flexibility throughout this album. On many cuts, he assumed completely different personas, with excellent, pleasing results.

The album takes one of a couple side trips, like “So Far From Heaven” by Fulcher and Sublett, with an assist from legendary Joe Sample (The Crusaders). It has a soul/funk intro that’s like Curtis Mayfield’s “Super Fly,” with lyrics equally reminiscent. It is one of two excellent “message” tunes on the album, all about the horror and stupidity of violence, in the inner city and by religious zealots:

Everyone said the sister was so lovely/She was at the top of her class/All the teachers expected certain big things/Took just one bullet to end all of that. And You say your God’s got to kill my God/It makes no sense to me/Cause how can you kill women and babies/And call it a victory?

It’s a really good song, with exciting, jazzy piano (from Sample, I think), vocals by Fulcher and several powerful sax breaks from Sublett. An equally good message tune takes on Washington, Wall Street, and the recent financial disasters. It’s called “Change” and it describes the crazy the world we’ve created:

Things ain’t right in the land of the free/There ain’t enough brave around here/Running the world is a mighty big job/But it seems like we’re running on fear. Times are hard/Jobs are scarce/But the stock market’s doing real well. Fighting two or three wars/And five dollar gas/And war ain’t all that’s hell. We need a change, people.

And “There’s the party of money/Then there’s everybody else/And the country’s about to explode. Illegal aliens paid eleven billion in taxes/And Bank of America paid none/General Electric made twenty-six billion/Got a four billion dollar refund. I’m looking for a change, people.

There are other very good tunes, like Doc Pomus’ jumping “Boogie Woogie Country Girl,” Jimmy McCracklin’s soul shaker “Shame, Shame,” Shell’s toe-tapping “It’s All Right,” and the wonderful, mostly instrumental “Where Did My Monkey Go” from Leonard that shows off how very talented he, Sublett, and the other musicians are.

My favorite two songs, though, are “Feel Like Going Home,” a slow, county blues by superstar songwriter/singer Charlie Rich (“Behind Closed Doors”) that Finnigan absolutely nails, and the final cut, David Egan’s “Stone Survivor,” that is as close to a traveling musician’s anthem as you’re going to find. It’s an instant classic. Like an Eagles’ song that’s so good you can’t stop singing it, “Survivor” struts and rolls joyously, all about enduring the road and being proud of the accomplishment – I’m a stone survivor/I’ve seen this little world go round/I’m a straight through driver/And the ever-spinning wheels don’t get me down. And I ain’t no apologizer/I’m a stone survivor.

I toyed with giving this album a perfect “10” – something I’ve never done. In the end, I gave it a “9.75” (which I’ve also never done). BluesWax editors will round that up to “10” I assume. Hey, I’m still clinging to the thought that the “perfect” CD is yet to be made. But Inside Out is as close to perfect as anything I’ve heard this year, and for a long time. Inside Out is, both literally and figuratively, a Texas-sized triumph that expertly blends and stretches some of the finest musicians working today, in any genre.