Customer Reviews

The Long Way

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"The Long Way" from Albert Cummings and Swamp Yankee scores 5 stars in each category I consider when reviewing music: vocals, musicians, material, passion, and sound quality. Cummings is an intense and gifted guitarist, SRV flavored but certainly not a clone. He is also one of the better vocalists in this genre. The band is a power trio and compliment each other very well. There are nine tracks here and each is quite good. If you like guitar driven blues/rock music you are definitely going to want to own this set.

Albert Cummings leads his band swamp yankee through 9 tracks of rocking blue's chuck full of his tasty guitar work. Somewhat like Stevie but with a little cleaner tone. From the rocking The Long Way to the slow blues workout Lonley Bed, to the Skynyrdish Mojo Workin' his guitar is well upfront. The album has a very live feel to it because it was recorded almost soley in one two hour session. But don't let that stop you the production is crystal clear with good separation leaving alberts guitar work plenty of room to shine throughout. I can recommend this cd for those who like their blues rockin with alot of guitar work.

I am the drummer for this project,and was the drummer for this group for

3 years. This album was not meant to be released,infact it was not meant to be an album at all,just a recording of a set of music we did at Bluestock in Memphis on Beale St. We had just flown back from Memphis,had

gotten virtually no sleep and went into the studio to record the material

for "our own heads". We set up,did Mojo Workin' to get the sounds(so it wasn't even meant as a keeper) and proceded to do the whole set in one take, with all "the clams" included,did a quick mix,and got out of there in just under two and a half hours. We were so tired when we did this recording,that we as the group frankly thought it was a very poor representation of what we truly were(in fact we thought it sucked!).

We played it for some true blues fans and they thought it was great!!

So, Albert decided to print and release it,and away it went and so did

Albert's career. The rest is history. I'm truly blessed to have been part of this project and his career on "his way up" I thank Albert for the fun,

tribulations,and all the emotions and experiences we had.-Check out the cd!!---Ken Pallman ps.thanks Don Chilson,you're a great friend and wonderful player.....I hope Albert decides to rerelease this cd!

Albert Cummings debut release shows a truckload of promise. His guitar playing sizzles but is restrained and not over the top and his vocals are pleasant and easy listening. Cummings release is mostly original with two covers, Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie", Robert Johnson's "Crossroads" and the blues standard, "Mojo Working" all performed very well. To me, the original material works much better for Cummings than tunes like "Crossroads" which have been done time and again by blues musicians everywhere. That is a small knock for this otherwise fine disc. Best tracks, "The Long Way" and "Lonely Bed", both original, slow to medium tempo, excellent guitar and strong vocals.

I have been listening to Albert Cummings from the day I bought my first CD Feel So Good and The Long Way Home is another Excellent Album with Great Blues Rock Guitar by Albert & Band , had to wait a while for it and when looking for it read it was discontinued doesn't make sense personally think this album is as good as Feel So Good Recommended .

I own all five of Albert Cummings CD's and they are all very good. This one and the live "FEELS SO GOOD" CD's are my personal favorites but you can't go wrong with any of them. The sound quality of this CD is amazing. "CRANK IT UP"

I started to know Albert Cummings by listening to his second album "From the heart" that in my opinion is a great Rock - Blues album. When his third CD has been published, I bought it straight away and I loved it as much as I loved his previous one. So I decided to have also this one, his first self-produced effort. Compared with his more recent production this one has no "rock" in the mix, just great "blues". I also started to understand why quite a lot of people like to make comparison between his work and the great (and I am afraid never matched) SRV. There is something in his playing that reminds SRV, maybe his fender tone that sounds very close to SRV, however Albert indisputably has his "own style" and he is not, from my point of view, another clone of the great SRV. Despite the fact that this is a self-produced CD the sound quality is superb and Albert's guitar work shines throughout the 9 "12 bars" songs included in the album. Highlights of the album are the mid-tempo original version of "The long way" that here sounds more blues than in "From the heart" and the slow burning magnificent "Lonely bed" (that also appear in a similar version in "True to yourself"). A very highly recommended blues album if you like your blues very much guitar driven or/and if you are already an Albert Cummings fan and you would like to discover his "deep blues" roots.