Rating:
Genre:
Rock
Release Date: 06/24/2008
Little Axe is guitarist and singer
Skip McDonald, but it's also much more than that. It is, in practice, a virtual reunion of
the Sugarhill Gang -- the rhythm section responsible for the grooves underlying such paleo-
hip-hop classics as
"Rapper's Delight" and
"White Lines" -- and therefore also a virtual reunion of
Tackhead, the pioneering
avant funk outfit that brought
the Sugarhill Gang together with British producer
Adrian Sherwood and vocalists
Gary Clail and
Bernard Fowler. In the
Little Axe context, though, the focus is squarely on
McDonald and on his overriding passion: vintage
blues. Imagine a
Delta blues aesthetic (spare, rural, and stark), and then imagine it thickened with additional instrumental layers and twisted with dubwise atmospherics, and you'll have some idea what to expect -- sort of like a posthumous collaboration between
Howlin' Wolf and
African Head Charge. The second
Little Axe album features mostly
McDonald originals, along with some well-chosen covers from the likes of
Allen Toussaint,
Skip James, and former
Living Colour drummer
Will Calhoun. But even his originals owe a deep debt to the work of his forefathers --
"If I Had My Way," for example, takes its whole chorus from the
gospel classic
"Samson and Delilah." Stone Cold Ohio is a real rarity: an album that can't be mistaken for anything other than
blues, but that sounds nothing like any
blues album you've ever heard.
~Rick Anderson, All Music Guide
;)
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