Craig Chaquico "Fire Red Moon"

 

BKP sent this to me at the end of 2012 along with the latest Sweet album.  I had already given the thumbs down to Sweet, a favorite band of my youth, during the sampling process and told him so.  Four days later, I get a text from him saying, "Sweet Stunk.  Craig Chaquico same so far."  Did not receive any additional opinions, and aware of his purist tilt as far as Blues goes, doubt it changed.  I truly hope he was able to soldier through a couple additional plays because I believe there are some gems to be mined on "Fire Red Moon."

My age demographic knows his work but maybe not his moniker.  He was the guitarist/songwriter ("Jane" & "Find Your Way Back," for example) in the Starship portion of Jefferson from 1974 through its demise in 1990.  His solo work afterwards was acoustic and back then was considered New Age.  There was a World Music vibe in it, too. Smooth Jazz would be the best descriptor for his most recent work.  In the last twenty years, nine of his albums have charted via the ones deemed New Age or Contemporary Jazz.  Make that ten with "FRM" and add Blues to the charts. 

The album is on Blind Pig Records whose artist stable includes Buddy Guy, Coco Montoya, Charlie Musselwhite, etc., so I understand the confusion and frustration of the blues purists.  I called this album "Smooth Blues," and I swear I didn't see that term anywhere else.  Copyright!  I've seen 5-Star reviews and 1-Star opinions calling "FRM" "pure pop, not blues," "basically rock with weak vocals," but also "rockin', smokin' hot blues," and "great guest singers and blues feeling."  Since there doesn't appear to be much, if any, promotional support for the album as of yet, I'll link you to a couple of standout tracks. The opener features the fine vocals of Noah Hunt from Kenny Wayne Shepherd's Band. The Eagles' might have an infringement case against track #2 as it could be easily mistaken for one of their compositions. My favorite song is "Bad Woman," which produced a wave of goosebumps across my arms. I don't know who the cat is singing but WOW! These are two of the seven original creations, a couple more are instrumental. Of the three well-known covers, two are instrumentals as well, one of which is a favorite blues tune of mine, "Born Under A Bad Sign." It's a touch too happy-sounding, though. The final cover is the closing track, "Crossroads." Yes, that one. This has the other unknown (to me) vocalist yet he does a great job. I get a kind of ZZ Top "Legs" treatment, don't you?

I did not own any Craig Chaquico solo albums...until now....