Review: Dave Mason – A Shade Of Blues
Dave Mason – A Shade Of Blues
Format: CD – Vinyl LP – Digital / Label: Barham Productions
Release: 2025
Text: Martien Koolen
Singer/songwriter/guitarist and co-founder of legendary band Traffic, Dave Mason, known for his archetypal compositions like Feelin’ Alright and Only You Know And I Know, is of course not really a blues musician.
However, his new album ‘A Shade Of Blues,’ displays Mason’s bluesy abilities for sure, featuring eleven newly mixed and remastered songs from several periods of Mason’s career. Mason is “helped’ by notorious guest musicians like e.g. guitar hero Joe Bonamassa, Michael McDonald (Doobie Brothers) and Mike Finnigan, resulting in a genuinely nice mix of blues, rock, and soul music.
Bonamassa picks his guitar on three tracks (Use It, Or Lose It, Dear Mr. Fantasy, and The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys) of which the latter is the best song of the entire album with Bonamassa’s soaring guitar solos setting the scene here. Good 2 U is a pop/blues gospel-like track, featuring the legendary keyboard player Mike Finnigan and maybe this one is meant as a tribute to this great musician, who played with the best guitarist ever, Jimi Hendrix!
Come On In My Kitchen is a blues song, originally from Robert Johnson (released in 1937 !!), just like Elmore James’s Dust My Blues, and both classics feature raw acoustic work, which are not really my cup of tea.
Born Under A Bad Sign (Albert King,1967), featuring Mike Finnigan again, is a rather weak cover of this old school classic, as versions of Cream (1968) or Pat Travers (1980) are definitely more interesting than Mason’s version here.
Michael McDonald’s very distinctive voice can be heard on Mason’s self-penned It’s Just You And Me, while Spanish-flamenco sounding El Toro features saxophone player Warren Hill.
‘A Shade Of Blues’ is a surprising gathering of Mason’s bluesy and rocky musical aspects of this veteran!
Tracks:
01. Use It, Or Lose It
02. Come Home In My Kitchen
03. It’s Just You And Me
04. Cocaine Blues
05. The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys
06. Born Under A Bad Sign
07. Dust My Blues
08. Dear Mr. Fantasy
09. Just Another Fool In Love
10. El Toro
11. Good 2U
Website: https://www.davemasonmusic.com/