(Blues Rock, Funk) [CD] Scott Holt - Messing With The Kid - 1998, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Guitar virtuoso Scott Holt first came to national prominence as part of various high energy bands led by legendary Chicago blues guitarist and singer Buddy Guy. He was just 23 when Guy took him under his wing and taught him how to travel intelligently while accommodating the rigorous nature of blues touring. Holt stayed with Guy on the road and in the recording studio for a decade, earning his post-graduate education with one of the true blues guitar masters.
Holt was raised in Tennessee, and hearing Jimi Hendrix for the first time proved to be a revelatory moment in his life. His parents bought him a guitar for Christmas when he was 12. Like a lot of kids, he took piano lessons, because he had to, but he quit after six months. He didn't get serious about playing the instrument until he was 19, when his parents bought him an electric guitar. When he was 20, his father took him to hear Buddy Guy one night. That night, he met Guy and got an improvised guitar lesson from the master. He would frequently sit in with Guy on stage when he was touring around Nashville. One day in 1989, Guy called Holt out of the blue and asked him to join his touring band.
Holt began writing his own songs while on the road with Guy and eventually began to record his songs, back home in Nashville, during breaks from Guy's international touring schedule.
In a record company biography accompanying "Dark of the Night," his first nationally distributed recording, Holt argues: "Every genre has its purists, but blues doesn't start and stop with Muddy Waters." Indeed, through the 1990's and into the new millennium, Holt and his various touring bands have been expanding the parameters of the form, and thanks to his decade on the road with Guy, he's been able to share stages and learn from the likes of Eric Clapton, John Mayall, Albert Collins, Jack Bruce, Carlos Santana and Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora.
Holt's albums under his own name, which showcase his abilities as a songwriter and singer as well as his fiery, passionate, high energy guitar playing, include his debut, "Messing with the Kid," in 1998, "Dark of the Night," a 1999 release for Mystic Music, "Chipped Front Tooth," for Lightyear Entertainment in 2003, and "From Lettsworth to Legend: A Tribute to Buddy Guy."
More recently, he's released "Angels in Exile" for Blue Storm Music in 2001 and "Revelator" for Rockview in late 2005. Holt continues to tour the U.S. and Canada.
https://scottholt.com
Give Scott Holt credit for trying to breathe life into the modern electric blues with his second album, Dark of the Night. He is clearly indebted to tradition -- he spent over a decade as a sideman for Buddy Guy, and he performs not only with his band but with Stevie Ray Vaughan's Double Trouble and the Jimi Hendrix Experience as backing bands -- but he never mimics his predecessors, even if he's covering "Crosstown Traffic." His guitar is lively and vibrant, projecting more of synthesis of various styles rather than duplication. Holt also chooses some unusual songs, opening the album with Prince's "Five Women" and the Clash's "Train in Vain (Stand By Me)." All of these departures from the norm are quite welcome, as is Holt's strong musicianship, but the record is occasionally bogged down by his strained, bluesy vocalizing, which unfortunately comes to the forefront on such interesting choices as "Train in Vain." Even with this weakness, however, the record has a considerable amount of life and style -- enough to make it a satisfying step forward from Holt.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/dark-of-the-night-mw0000245427
https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/scott_holt/messing_with_the_kid.p/
https://www.discogs.com/artist/703432-Scott-Holt-3