Review: Mick Kolassa – All Kinds Of Blues
Mick Kolassa – All Kinds Of Blues
Format: CD – Vinyl LP – Digital / Label: Endless Blues Records
Release: 2024
Text: Tom Wouters
Blues veteran Mick Kolassa was active as a musician from Memphis, Tennessee for over 30 years before returning to his roots in Michigan. He recorded his fifteenth album for his own record label Endless Blues Records. ‘All Kinds Of Blues’ is an album whose title absolutely covers the load. Kolassa, who calls his music Post Contemporary Acid Blues with a wink, combines his blues with influences from folk, jazz and funk, resulting in a very varied album. In addition, Kolassa’s vocal delivery makes his tongue-in-cheek lyrics easy to enjoy.
‘All Kinds Of Blues’ starts with two big band blues songs dominated by a horn section (Thank You Memphis and Where Love Takes Me), the hilarious Somebody Else’s Whiskey also falls into that category. Kolassa’s voice and lyrics are ideally suited for the talkin’ blues-like songs, such as Did You Ever Wonder, a talkin’ blues duet with Doug McLeod, and Too Old To Die Young about how he survived Generation 27, here specifically named are Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix (“I survived generation 27 two point seven times”).
Bad Decisions is straight talkin’ blues. The next kind of blues on the list is the jazzy or swing blues, beautifully performed by Kolassa and his musicians in Happy Endings (with a beautiful Oscar Peterson piano), Amy Iodine, that gets a psychedelic touch because Rick Steff is given the freedom to fully indulge himself on his Mini Moog, Does Your Mama Know, Can’t Sing No Blues Tonight, That Don’t Mean, with a beautiful wah-wah guitar, and is topped off by the sultry nightclub blues of Eating My Soul. And with the funk blues of You Bumped Me Again and the country song A Yankee Heading Home, Kolassa has completed his all kinds of blues.
‘All Kinds Of Blues’ has become a very amusing and varied blues album, which is a joy to listen to.
Tracks:
01. Thank You Memphis
02. Where Love Takes Me
03. Did You Ever Wonder?
04. Too Old to Die Young
05. Happy Endings
06. Amy Iodine
07. You Bumped Me Again
08. Does Your Mama Know?
09. Eating My Soul
10. Can’t Sing No Blues Tonight
11. That Don’t Mean
12. Somebody Else’s Whiskey
13. Bad Decisions
14. A Yankee Heading Home
Website: https://mimsmick.com/