If one is searching for some tight, well-presented blues music by an artist who has experience and talent, Michael Pickett's, Conversation With the Blues is the album to pick up. Pickett presents blues music with the finesse and charisma which comes from years of study and soulful admiration of what the genre is all about. Blues music is a genre of music which contains a small percentage of composition and a large portion of emotional improvisational expression. Michael Pickett pours himself, body and soul, into each tune on the album, sending the listener on a unique refreshing journey within his conversation with the blues. Each tune on the album, with the exception of one that is a solo effort from Pickett, finds Pickett's expressive and melodic vocals and mind-blowing harmonica complimented by Shawn Kellerman's extensive blues guitar work. "Junk Thang," a blues instrumental done in the key of E, is sure to hook many a blues fan to Pickett's magnetic harmonica playing. Shawn Kellerman and Teddy Leonard shine on "Junk Thang" with some exhilarating electric lead-guitar jamming. "Look out at the Weather" gives one the impression that Pickett has experienced the blues with the same force felt by Stevie Ray Vaughan and others who have gained the respect of blues fans worldwide. Michael Pickett is a talented musician and an amazing artist who breathes a new life into the blues by bringing it back with original energy and charisma. His style is very much his own, but one can hear and feel early influences in his music lending the comfortable quality and familiarity so often associated with true blues at it's finest. So if in search of a real blues sound, call on Michael Pickett and have a conversation with the blues as never before.
© Larry Belanger /TiVo