Singer/songwriter/harmonica player Ray Norcia may be a New Englander, born in Connecticut and resident of Rhode Island, but on
Evening, the fifth album for Severn Records by his band
Sugar Ray & the Bluetones, this
Roomful of Blues alumnus sounds more like a Mississippi expatriate living on Chicago's South Side. He and his bandmates --
"Monster" Mike Welch on guitar, Neil Gouvin on drums, Michael "Mudcat" Ward on bass, and
Anthony Geraci on piano -- also make music suggesting that the era is the late '40s or early ‘50s instead of 2011. The title track, perhaps better known with a dropped "g" as "Evenin'," is a 1934 copyright introduced by
Cab Calloway and popularized in the ‘40s by
Count Basie with
Jimmy Rushing on vocals; "You Know My Love" was written by Chess Records'
Willie Dixon and recorded by
Otis Rush; and the leadoff track is
Johnny Young's "I'm Having a Ball." The rest of the songs are newly written by Norcia or members of
the Bluetones ("Hard to Get Along With" is by
Welch, "[That's Not Yet] One of My Blues" by Ward), but they might just as well be of the vintage of the covers. Norcia has two different vocal styles. He adopts a hoarse, gruff tone for the more raucous numbers like "I'm Having a Ball" and "I Came Down with the Blues," but he has more of a smooth croon for "You Know My Love" and other ballads. The blues styles vary from slow tunes like the politically -- or at least medically -- incorrect "Too Many Rules and Regulations," in which Norcia rejects modern notions of healthy living, to the R&B/jump blues styles of "I'm Certain That I'm Hurting" and "Dancing Bear (Little Indian Boy)," which surprisingly begins with a Native American flute passage played by the bandleader. Thus, there are a few unusual touches in the lyrics and music here and there, but for the most part this is contemporary blues with a traditional cast from some accomplished veterans. ~ William Ruhlmann