Quintus McCormick Blues Band: Hey Jodie!

Quintus McCormick Blues Band
Hey Jodie!
Delmark
2009-09-22

Watch out for Jodie: Jean Knight came to his defense in ’71. Millie Jackson got Caught Up with him and went to war with his wife in ’73, while both Johnnie Taylor and Bobby Patterson warned of his smooth-talking, back-door-working ways on “Jody Got Your Girl” and “Right On Jody” respectively. Now Chicago resident Quintus McCormick calls out the shape-shifting everyman Casanova on the suave soul ballad “Hey Jodie! (Take Good Care of My Baby)”, the title track and opening number of the bluesman’s debut studio album.

A popular draw on the Windy City’s blues circuit since forming his band in 1994, the singer/guitarist has put together a solid album of 14 original songs and one cover, a scintillating electric blues ‘n’ boogie reading of Shirley and Lee’s “Let the Good Times Roll” with Roosevelt “Mad Hatter” Purify on piano. It will leave you wondering how this could possibly be McCormick’s first label release. Highlights include the low-down blues of “What Goes Around Comes Around”, the toe-tappin’ southern-edge-of soul-blues of “Fifty/Fifty”, and “You Got to Do Me Better Than That”, both punctuated with tight bursts of brass supplied by the Chicago Horns, and the rollin’ ‘n’ tumblin’ blues of “I’m A Good Man, Baby”. Really, he is.

RATING 6 / 10