Artist.......: Arsen Shomakhov
Album........: Dangerous
Label........: Blue leaf
Genre........: Blues
Catnr........: BL 9832
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Aug-20-2006
str.date.....: Feb-14-2006
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: n/a
track title time
01. Dangerous 03:40
02. Too Hot 03:32
03. Let Me Be Your Romeo 04:06
04. You're the One 03:22
05. Low Down Shakin' Chills 03:31
06. Troublemaker 03:56
07. Rainy Drive 02:59
08. Use What You Got 03:56
09. Arsonist 02:20
10. Don't Miss Your Train 03:02
11. Highway Cruise 04:43
12. I Don't Know 05:02
13. Beale Street Boogie 03:10
Runtime 47:19 min
Size 59,5 MB
Release Notes:
Down Beat (p.73) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[O]riginal
blues songs and jazz-country hybrids.....He sings
in English with genuine heart."
For lots of reasons, blues music got a late start
in Russia. Ever mindful of corrupting Western
influence, the Soviet censorship endeavored for
decades to protect the cultural virginity of the
population by severely restricting contact with
certain foreign musics media. When GorbachevÆs
perestroika brought these barriers down, a powerful
movement of youth protest appeared, organized
around rockÆnÆroll. Although a few bands performed
the type of blues that they had heard on British
recordings - Eric Clapton, early Fleetwood Mac, and
so forth - they were generally regarded as rockers
rather than as bluesmen. But after communism, that
movement disintegrated, and the various musics
within it - blues among them - began to precipitate
out as distinct forms with their own performers and
audiences. Since that time, the music has
developed from mimicry of British blues-rock, to a
replication of what Russians call the ôclassical
bluesö of the Delta and postwar Chicago, to the
production of a blues that is increasingly
identifiable as ôRussianö.
Arsen ShomakhovÆs musical career would be a
singular example of this larger pattern. His band,
Ragtime, began with a mixture of rock, jazz and
blues in the late eighties, converted to covering
straight blues material in the early nineties and,
by the end of the decade, was adding more and more
original numbers (ArsenÆs) to its repertoire. The
culmination of that journey has led to this CD, all
of whose tracks were composed by Arsen himself.
The range of styles included here - pretty much
every blues form except the country, bottle-neck
variety - handsomely showcases ArsenÆs talents.
His throaty yet smooth vocals particularly impress
on [ name songs that appear as tracks #2, #3 and
#8], leaving listeners with no clue that they are
hearing a non-native English speaker working in an
foreign idiom. His piercing guitar runs a gamut of
inflections from funk to jazz to country-western,
while never straying outside the borders of the
blues itself. This CD also represents an evolution
in his tone which now sports an unmistakable
twanginess in both the upper and lower registry
(check out the licks on track #4). Throughout,
Arsen is ably supported by Bek Mamyshe on drums and
Aslan Zhantuyev on bass.
Arsen and his band spent over a decade in their
native town of NalÆchik in RussiaÆs remote North
Caucasus, honing the craft as bluesmen despite the
fact that their geographic isolation meant that
there was effectively no chance to perform in
public. Their commitment to their music eventually
paid off, thrusting Arsen into the top ranks of
players in MoscowÆs sizeable blues scene. This CD
now makes his music available to an international
audience, reversing the pattern of cultural imports
by sending the blues back to us, from Russia with
love.
- Michael Urban, Author of RUSSIA GETS THE BLUES