Customer Reviews

Sweet Pea

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This CD presents the true richness of sound of the range of the new National Reso-Phonic gutars and what this musical genius can do with them. Every track is a joy.

My favorite Catfish Keith album is his all-instrumental album, A Fistful of Riffs. While Catfish Keith is an outstandingly original guitarist, his vocals are a bit affected, and they leave something to be desired. However, this is my favorite of his albums with vocals. Catfish Keith plays a variety of different resonator guitars, including a 12-string resonator on this album, and what separates him from the rest of the acoustic blues crowd is his control over and willingness to experiment with tone, harmonics and string bends in unusual ways. The only real comparison is Bob Brozman. Catfish Keith isn't as creative with a slide, but the harmonics and string bends here sound like nobody else.

Unfortunately, Catfish Keith's vocals are also reminiscent of Bob Brozman in that they are affected to the point of sounding goofy. In his defense, he clearly doesn't take himself, or his singing, very seriously, and on this album, the vocals take a clear back-seat to the instrumental work. On some of Catfish's other vocal albums, the songs are rather short, and he leaves himself less room to stretch out instrumentally. All but three songs here are over four minutes, and five are over five minutes. He doesn't spend that extra time on extended vocal histrionics, and that is what makes this better than his other vocal albums. Furthermore, his instrumental work is even more free here than on A Fistful of Riffs. It would be better without vocals or with a better singer, but the guitar work here is top-notch.