The Siegel-Schwall Band: Flash Forward

The Siegel-schwall Band
Flash Forward
Alligator
2005-08-16

The Siegel-Schwall Band came into being in 1964, as the blues were being rediscovered in the U.S. Contemporaries of Paul Butterfield and Charlie Musselwhite, they had the good luck to be located in Chicago. They put out exciting music, led by Jim Schwall’s intriguing ability to play his amplified acoustic Gibson like an electric guitar.

However, it has been thirty two years since the group put out a studio album of new material. Thousands of bands have mined the blues since then, producing the same crops so many times that the fields have become almost barren. And the Siegel-Schwall Band have not flash-forwarded much in the meantime, even though they have filled the rhythm section with bassist Rollo Radford and veteran Sam Lay on drums (Lay has sat behind Paul Butterfield, Bob Dylan, and many Chicago blues legends).

The blues desperately needs new songs, but you won’t find any upcoming classics here. These songs mostly contain overly familiar patterns and riffs.

“Afraid of Love”, written by harpist/pianist Corky Siegel, uses the old familiar twelve bar blues with mundane lyrics sung by Lay (“I’m afraid of love / But only a little afraid of you”). Siegel has never been more than a competent harp player, always lacking an element of fire. You might expect that of someone who has released more than one CD of something called “chamber blues”. Sparse background vocals by Marcy Levy (Eric Clapton, Stephen Stills) do not add much.

Siegel is worse as a lead vocalist (author note: If I seem overly critical, I once saw a solo Corky Siegel concert and was emotionally scarred by the experience.) Siegel sounds like a folk singer/songwriter who has wandered into the wrong studio. He uses a lounge-flavored voice and piano on “Can’t Stop”, making the listener mentally wail, “Please, stop, Corky!”

Everything on this CD seems a bit flat, as if each band member was recorded at a different time or in a different room. The production by Corky and Holly Siegel (surprise!) does not capture any sense of interplay between the musicians.

The best songs are sung and written by Radford. “Crazy” is a bit crazy sounding, with Radford describing his unusual wardrobe and look, and consumption of Mad Dog Wine. “Pauline” is a pleasant jazz-flavored ballad.

Schwall’s are the worst. “On the Road” is a shameless ripoff of “Six Days on the Road”. The theft is not covered up by Schwall’s substitution of mandolin for guitar. “The Underqualified Blues” does not get any humor from the well-known details of George W. Bush’s incompetence. I’m not sure what the folk song “Hey Leviticus” is about, but it is not likely to be covered by Buddy Guy in the near future.

Lay’s songs are derivative but functional, particularly “Stormy Weather Love”, a deft solo performance with Lay playing guitar.

It is no surprise that blues players mellow with age, but it seems that too much time has passed for this band to recapture the spark they used to have. You would be better off with a vintage Siegel-Schwall album, the earlier the better.

RATING 3 / 10