Johnny Viau and the Blues Allstars
Live at Dizzy’s
Rainbo Records – 2001 – USA

Nowadays, in the Blues there is an unquestionable dominance of guitar as the leading instrument: each village has its own SRV wanna-be. This phenomenon started thirty years ago with the death of Jimi Hendrix, when the music business wanted to find another guitar-hero like him overnight. Originality and personality are rare assets and the ultimate risk for the addicted CD buyer is to fill his/her shelves with numberless guitar-oriented records of a kind, i.e. Blues-Rock. The least we can thus say about this Johnny Viau’s CD is that it’s refreshing. On par with the godfathers of Blues-Horns Kaz Kazanoff and Sax Gordon, Johnny is a fine person and an outstanding musician who has been taking the horn duties with Jimmy Morello, Kirk “Eli” Fletcher and Roy Gaines, just to mention a few. No creamy, double-butter, fat sound from the Blues Allstars, featuring horn-brother Troy Jennings on baritone, a great band who seamlessly blends ballads and swing numbers. Four stars.

Luca Lupoli