BILLY BOY ARNOLD

Billy Boy Sings Sonny Boy 

Electro-Fi E-fi 3405

by Tim Holek

     Here is a heavy dose of old school blues that you thought wasn’t being recorded any longer. I saw Billy Boy Arnold along with this exact same remarkable band perform over the weekend this CD was recorded in Toronto in 2007. I was on cloud nine for the entire time they were performing as it was some of the finest traditional blues that I've heard in a long time. Needless to say, my expectations for this album were extremely high.

     John Lee Williamson (the original Sonny Boy) transformed the blues and was a tremendous influence on Arnold. This album is Arnold’s way of celebrating the music of Williamson and it was released on the 60^th anniversary of Sonny Boy’s untimely passing. What a great concept for an album. The vast majority of the repertoire is songs written by Williamson such as Good Morning Little School Girl and Half-A-Pint but there are also three originals by Arnold. Vocally, Billy Boy doesn’t attempt to imitate Sonny Boy but he does emulate Williamson’s harp tone and undulated phrasing especially on New Jail House Blues. How he can play like someone from another generation is astounding. 

     The 17 songs start to sound similar, and at 71-minutes, the CD is too long in duration to listen to in one sitting. So this loyal tribute CD may be a bit tedious for modernists but traditionalists will be delighted by the electric blues produced by this all-star band featuring surviving masters Bob Stroger, Willie Smith, Mel Brown, and Billy Flynn. The best things about the album are it gives awareness to the genuine Sonny Boy and the revelation of Brown as an outstanding keyboard player. 

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