Walter Trout:
20 Years of Hardcore Blues

Unspoiled By Progress - Megaforce Records - Jim Kanavy

Unspoiled by progress and unfettered by labels, Walter Trout looks back on a 20-year solo career with a keen sense of what makes a road band great. His group has been playing its heart out every night, pouring every ounce of energy into the music, electrifying audiences all over the world all the while maintaining integrity, musical kinship and, perhaps most importantly, good humor.
Prior to taking his own band on the road, Walter Trout spent a few years with Canned Heat in the early '80s. He was asked to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in 1984 and stayed until 1989. Since then, his quartet has been filling the blues bastions of Europe to the rafters, and Trout's name and music have been spreading across all 50 states for the last two decades.
This is due largely to the majestic playing and profound passion experienced in the mostly live and live-in-the-studio recordings found on Unspoiled By Progress. The performances are previously unreleased, including three new songs - one of which, "They Call Us the Working Class," opens the album and promptly throws down the gauntlet. With its terse riff and Trout's most impassioned vocals to date, the song's ire is directed at the economic state of the world, and the populist rampage explodes from chorus to chorus. It is perhaps his finest writing, thoroughly validating the album's title.
The Bluesbreakers' classic "Somebody's Acting Like a Child" is the oldest recording, and it features Little Feat's Richie Hayward sitting in on drums. Before the song, Walter jokes about dosing up with Rogaine hair growth cream. This and other humorous moments caught on tape are sprinkled throughout the disc, adding some levity to the heavy blues. This fast-pace barnstormer gives Danny "Mongo" Abrams ample opportunity to rev up the Hammond B-3 and fly it into hyperspace; all three players are adventurous in their solo spots and provide the perfect chord beds for Trout to plant his licks.
Trout's long-time friend and musical conspirator, bassist Jimmy Trapp - who passed away in 2005 - is featured prominently throughout Unspoiled By Progress.
"Sweet As a Flower" is co-written by Trapp, and Trout and departs significantly from the usual roadhouse rock and blues format. The band channels Santana and Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac with a sensuality rarely heard on a Walter Trout record. Trout plays with grace and beauty over a swirling organ, bending notes in to the stratosphere.
Trapp take center stage on "Goin' Back Home" with a funky, energized bass solo. "Goin' Back Home" also contains one of the greatest drum solos ever recorded; it pulsates, crashes, lilts and grooves, all in less than one minute. Here's to Mr. Bernard Pershey for keeping it short and sweet!
"Finally Gotten Over You" features a solo from Trout that shifts seamlessly from full-blown blues histrionics to sweetly-sentimental Christmas carols. Trout's torrid notes are like flurries of snowflakes in the Nordic winter. He displays depth and breadth of knowledge and skill that could scare some well-known players into seclusion.
Unspoiled By Progress takes us from clubs to festivals, and no matter what stage it's on, the band owns it. Their weapons are sparse but, they wage war on the blues. Walter Trout's playing doesn't necessarily flow; it's more like a barely-harnessed explosion. He drives full-speed ahead with an innate sense of dynamics and a seemingly endless musical vocabulary. His band mates don't just go along for the ride, either; they challenge Walter to keep it going and fire him up with their own energetic performances, as evidenced on a highlight of the album  Buddy Guy's "She's Out There Somewhere." The cymbals crash like glass while Walter's soloing rampages through town from door to door. If she's out there, you know she should keep on going.
Also on this disc are a smoldering rendition of Trout's "Life In the Jungle" and a fun, frantic reading of "Long Tall Sally." There's Freddie King-sized riffing on "Goin' Down" and the sweet, tender melodies of "Marie's Mood."
Progress is book-ended by another new song, "So Afraid of the Darkness." Trout says it's "for a young man who felt he had to leave the lights on at night." Its message of overcoming obstacles is wrapped in a Hendrix-via-Trower solo that reflects the song's lyric about angels leading us out of darkness. As Walter blazes the trail, we can't help but follow - for another 20 years, if all goes well and beyond.

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