ROSCO LEVEE

Roscoe Levee - Photo by Sarah Alexandra French

Kent’s very own mini blues revival shows no sign of abating. Only a matter of days ago RockKent posted a review of the gravely voiced Stuart Turner who, together with his Flat Earth Society recorded a pretty much perfect blues EP, “Weekend Heart”.

Prior to this, when not flying solo, Ben Jones has been exploring the form with his band, The Lovedays for a fair old while.

And now there’s Rosco Levee’s eponymous extended player to throw into the ring. Rosco Levee. With a name like that he couldn’t be anything but a blues musician. A regular performer alongside Chatham’s Pete Molinari (Bruce Springsteen’s a fan, you know), Levee’s now struck out on his own to record in his own right. And very good he is too.

Rosco Levee’s blues is a vaster sound than that of Turner’s. It incorporates huge swathes of country and a fair old smidgeon of rock and roll into the mix.

There’s a fair old bit of hip-shakin’ boogie-woogie, gospel crooning and bluegrass and honky-tonk playfulness in there to get the pulse racing. It’s the sort of thing that formed Elvis Presley’s bread and butter long before he let Las Vegas and hamburgers get the better of him.

The EP is laden with geographical references – as any songs from this genre should be. “I’m gonna get off at Pittsburgh and make a caddy shack,” runs one line in “Freaky”, while all roads “lead to Kansas” in “Potholes and Roadkill”. And when Levee sings of the river in “Goldrush” and elsewhere, it’s unlikely he’s referring to the Medway.

You’ll find references to places from other songs too. Most notably Fats Domino’s beloved Strawberry Hill gets name checked in “Potholes and Roadkills” with a line about going there “to pass the time”.

Blues is, of course, the definitive genre with which to air your grievances and disappointments. Entire back catalogues from four skinny indie kids whinging are as nothing compared to a good ol’ guitar lick from a blues artist.

And so it is here. Life is a struggle, souls are taken and whiskey is drunk; work is hard, women are fought for and then lead good men to ruin.

It’s mostly done over a galloping, whistle-stop sound. “Never Stops”, which takes a train journey as its theme, has all the pace and rhythm of an engine gaining momentum as it speeds along a rickety track: diddly-dum diddly-dah.

Meanwhile “Freaky” opens with a barnstorming drum solo redolent of Paolo Nutini’s “Ten Out Of Ten”, before lurching straight into a hoedown. You’d have to be dead not to tap your foot to this.

When the pace does slow, it’s to take in the scenery. You’ll find this on the sprawling Raconteurs-ish “Goldrush” with all its talk of “mountains and rivers of gold”.

Levee’s EP is a fantastic riot of old school blue-meets-country. As good an introduction as you could hope for into the genre which informed pretty much every musical thing that followed. Go on. Give it a listen.

Find out more at http://www.myspace.com/roscolevee