In a career spanning four decades, singer/songwriter and harmonicist
Curtis Salgado has explored many different dimensions in the American roots music mosaic. Though considered a blues singer,
Salgado draws few distinctions between blues, soul, R&B, and roots rock; they all merge in the resonant grain of his honeyed, gritty baritone voice.
Damage Control follows
Rough Cut, the singer's very satisfying 2019 deep blues duo outing with guitarist
Alan Hager. Cut with three bands in three different studios,
Salgado worked in Nashville, Studio City, and San Jose, California with players recruited from the bands of
Bonnie Raitt,
Buddy Guy,
Robert Cray,
Charlie Musselwhite, and more.
Damage Control hosts 12 originals and a cover of
Larry Williams' R&B classic "Slow Down," famously covered by
the Beatles as the B-side to "Dizzy Miss Lizzie" in 1964.
Opener "The Longer That I Live" is a strolling R&B barn burner with an affirmative and poignant lyric, given the health challenges
Salgado has faced: three separate bouts of cancer and a quadruple bypass. The strolling guitars and shuffling B-3 underscore his soulful testimony, delivered with his warm, requisite humor balanced by steely determination. Ultimately, it's an anthem of gratitude for the time he's been given and a refusal to surrender breathing before it's time.
Many would argue, and not incorrectly, that
Salgado is at his best when singing about the trials and travails of romance. "What Did Me In, Did Me Well" adds heft to that argument. A simmering R&B tune with a bumping bassline and choogling organ,
Salgado delivers an unflinching portrait of romantic love's redemptive power, complete with a fine
Stevie Wonder-esque harmonica solo. A pumping piano leads the boogie on "You're Going to Miss My Sorry Ass," a humorous tune about two generations of brazen, unrepentant criminals. "Count of Three" channels the early rock glory days of
Fats Domino,
the Big Bopper, and
Huey "Piano" Smith. A swinging three-piece horn section joins the band for "Hail Mighty Caesar," which is drenched in steamy, strutting New Orleans R&B.
Salgado's voice revels in the irony contained in his sly lyric. "I Don't Do That No More" is a steely-eyed yet wry paean to the joys of recovery set to a biting
Chuck Berry/
Johnnie Johnson riff, while the title track is a midtempo blues stroll with glorious jazz guitar fills. Cajun accordion hero
Wayne Toups joins
Salgado on "Truth Be Told." It weds the vocal harmonies of the
Everly Brothers to
Clifton Chenier's back-of-the-bayou zydeco groove. The riotous cover of
Williams' "Slow Down" brings the horn section back to close the set out with a roots rock/vintage R&B rave-up. Though he's never released a substandard album,
Salgado has been on a roll since issuing his Alligator debut Soul Shot in 2012.
Damage Control, from the rock & roll side of the R&B tracks, stands alongside it as a career high point. ~ Thom Jurek