Sworn Testimony: The Billy Price Band Live

Billy Price (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 27, 2002)
• Original Release Date: June 27, 2002
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: CDBY
• ASIN: B000CADRQC
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #499,119 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Worth the Price, November 21, 2002

By 

Larry White (AdultPop.com) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Two and a half hours of sweet, soul music. These are songs of love and lust, betrayal and trust. Although every one was originally recorded by someone else, Price makes each one his own as he sings with the conviction of a man who has been there. Of course he does that on all his CDs. What makes this distinctive is, like all live albums, it allows us to recapture a specific moment in time. We get to sense firsthand Price's easy rapport with both his band and his audience. We get to hear the priceless (or should we say Priceful) little nuances, a soulful sigh, a lecherous chortle. And we get to hear Price's tight and terrific band stretch out, allowing each member to, at one time or another, take center stage. We particularly love those Memphis-style horns. This is an album of funk and fun. Easily worth the Price.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A nonpareil captured "live" !, September 17, 2002

By 

J. C. Bartlett III (Millersville, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

"Sworn Testimony" preserves, for the ages, a riveting show by one of the greatest live acts of any era-The Billy Price Band.

Recorded in Annapolis, MD, in April, 2002, this two-CD set is a dynamic and loving interpretation of nuggets from The Great American Songbook (From the Other Side Of the Tracks). Backed by a crack seven-piece band of the Pittsburgh area's very finest players, Billy Price gives emotion-drenched readings of classics from the Blues, Soul, Deep Soul and Gospel genres...timeless songs associated with artists such as Tyrone Davis, Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, O.V. Wright, Bobby "Blue" Bland, Clarence Carter, Syl Johnson, Al Green, Junior Parker and Dorothy Love Coates.

It just doesn't get any better than this ! Billy Price is no mere well-intentioned wannabe...he is every bit as authentic as his own heroes, as his fiercely loyal fans know and will testify. In his crusade to help keep alive an extraordinary body of work unknown to the general radio-listening public, Billy Price is aided and abetted by a group of bandmates whose precision and dynamic playing are second to none. Captured, on this soulful set, are the extraordinary talents of saxmen Matt Ferraro & Eric DeFade, trumpet ace Joe "Hightone" Herndon, guitarslinger Lenny Smith, keyboard marvel John "The Junkman" Burgh, bass ace Willy ("with a 'Y'") Franklin, and H.B. Bennett- on the drums, keeping time with the accuracy of an atomic clock. What a band...now this is what I'm talkin' about !

The Billy Price Band provides the gold-leaf, gilt-edged frame for Billy's "Old Master" word-paintings. If you love deeply soulful music, delivered straight from the heart, this set is the perfect introduction to one of the music world's greatest little-known treasures. If you're already one of "the cats that know...", as Leiber-Stoller remarked, this CD is the ultimate BP recording for your collection ! I know...I was there for both nights of recording !

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Truth, the "Whole truth" and Nuthin' But the Truth!, August 8, 2002

By 

Terry Goldman "Bluesjew4847" (Kents Store, VA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

For the most part, you are either familiar with the BP Band and their Stax/Volt "blues revival" sound, a little
Al Green, Syl Johnson, O.V. Wright, Tyrone Davis....or you're not. Price, a thirty year veteran of "deep soul" vocalizations hails from Jersey but for many years is best known to East coast clubbers as "The Man" From Pittsburgh!

This live album captures the phenomenal experience of Billy in a club setting (the Rams Head in Annapolis,Md) where he consistently "sells out" the house and then proceeds to sing, interpret and stylize the blues that will shake you to your core! Deep Soul is the exact term for their brand of music.

TheBand is rock solid; the horns (Ferraro and DeFade on Bari and Tenors) are SO FINE on this album that they almost put Billy in the background, superb piano and Hammond B-3 work by the Junkman, John Burgh is also worth noting and the Muscle Shoals style of guitar by "Sheffield Alabama" native Lenny Smith is simply blistering. The rest of the band is so tight, the arrangements and medleys of tunes just seem to keep the audience rockin.

But in the end you must give credit to Billy Price and his vocals.....deep soulful interpretations of "Can I Change My Mind, A Nickel and a Nail, Last Two Dollars, Slip Away and the new staple....."Open House at My House"...all make for 150 minutes of pure CD delight.

My only complaint......missing from the live set is Price singing Swamp Dogg (Jerry Williams) paean to relationships....Price's fantastic soulful interpretation of "What is Love......and what makes you think you deserve some."

The BP Band is waiting to be discovered by you....this double album is a GEM and if you like Billy Vera and the Beaters, Delbert McClinton, Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers, Roomful of Blues.......spend your money & be assured that NO ONE HAS MADE A "LIVE" ALBUM LIKE THIS IN A LONG TIME!

I CAN TESTIFY CAUSE I WAS THERE WHEN THEY RECORDED IT. MY WORD IS MY TESTIMONY! I SWEAR!