Search - Son Seals :: Son Seals Blues Band

Son's rawest, realest

Tim Weber | Iowa | 04/26/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Your love is just like a cancer, woman, eating away my life." Yikes! It doesn't get much more raw than that. This stripped-down, loose album is Son Seals' first and best. Still the place to start to get to know this great blues artist."

A great debut from one of Chicago's finest

Docendo Discimus | Vita scholae | 10/03/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Originally issued in 1973 on Bruce Iglauer's then-new Alligator label, this is the late, great Frank "Son" Seals' debut album, a supremely rough, tough affair with some stinging lead guitar playing, tougher and less polished than Stevie Ray Vaughan and at least as gritty as Johnny Winter and Buddy Guy.



Son Seals mines classic Chicago blues grooves on the swinging "Look Now, Baby" and the slow "Cotton Pickin' Blues", and other highlights include the grinding (and thoroughly unsentimental) "Your Love Is Like A Cancer", the fiery "Mother-In-Law Blues", a genuine blues in the vein of Elmore James, and the funky "How Could She Leave Me". But there are really no weak tracks here at all, just forty minutes of slashing guitar playing and raw bluesy goodness played by the stripped-down four-piece band (Seals, bassist John Riley, drummer Charles Caldwell, and organ player Johnny "Big Moose" Walker").



These compositions are less influenced by soul and rock than Seals' albums would be just a few years later, so there are more traditional A-A-B-arrangements here than on his other records, and his lead guitar playing is sharp as shards of broken glass, as gritty as anything you'll ever hear on a 70s blues record. And while "The Son Seals Blues Band" is perhaps not as instantly memorable as the best work of Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf, it is a very enjoyable record even without an obvious replacement for "Hoochie Coochie Man"!"

Son Seals Best

Docendo Discimus | 01/07/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is Son Seals best album. The recording is wonderful, providing the clarity of a studio recording and the raw sound of a live recording. Son Seals burns the guitar through some excellent blues numbers along with a powerful backup band. Play this one loud. This is a treasure for both blues and rock fans."