About 1 in 10 musicians described as ‘legends’ have anything like the chops to justify the title but Robben Ford is a genuine legend having been nominated 5 times for Grammys and done stints with George Harrison, Miles Davis, Bonnie Raitt and Joni Mitchell among many, many more in a 30+ year career. He describes this album as “one of the top recordings I’ve ever done” and I’m not going to disagree.
As a songwriter Ford has few peers and the songs on this set show some remarkable talents across a ramp of different forms and styles from the opener ‘Rose Of Sharon’ with its dense and plodding beat, picked guitar and closed in and dark feel to the country boogie of ‘Rainbow Cover’ and on to wonderfully cheesy country funk on ‘High Heels and Throwing Things’.
He has a raft of top names playing with him on the album including Keb Mo, Warren Haynes and Sonny Landreth but they only add to the album, there is no sense of bringing in big guns to bolster the album, it all stands on its own. Ford’s guitar playing is always a strength with its many layers and his ability to play in many different styles and he is matched here against some wondrous Hammond and piano throughout and his usual rhythm section of Brian Allen and Wes Little (on bass and drums respectively) give him the platform to do pretty well anything he wants.
Favourites here are ‘So Long 4 U’ (with Sonny Landreth) and the gospel-like ‘Justified’ with Keb Mo and Robert Randolph as well as ‘Breath Of Me’ featuring ZZ Ward which has a great duet between Ford’s strong vocal and ZZ’s soulful and plaintive voice and some of the best guitar on the album, but there isn’t a weak number on the album and you can dip in at any point and pull out a gem.
One of the most celebrated musicians around these days and deservedly so, the album works on many levels but builds and grows with every listen too.
