House of Blues Record Release Party

By TODD EVERETT

House of Blues Record Release Party (House of Blues; 1,000 capacity; $ 12.50) Promoted inhouse. Acts: Becky Barksdale, Paul Black & the Flip Kings, Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Cissy Houston, Gales Bros., John Mooney, Jimmy Rip; with Taj Mahal, Clara Ward Singers, Dan Aykroyd. Reviewed April 18, 1996. Launch of House of Blues record label brought together several of the imprint's acts together under the West Hollywood nightclub's huge tin roof. Roster is a strong blend of vintage and newer acts, whose power could have raised that roof a couple of inches, at least.
 
Dan Aykroyd, in his Elwood Blues persona, hosted the event and provided a rather pedantic historical thread bringing the blues idiom from Southern churches and cotton fields and into the present ("There was a great migration up the Mississippi River ...").
 

Label officially debuts this month with release of three albums, and some performers were previewing material to be issued in the (presumably near) future.

Three-hour main show started and ended on the clock, perhaps because it was being broadcast live over the Internet. Most of the music performed was rather generic (little if any new ground was broken here), but level of performance was consistently high, and there was a fair amount of variety. And the show's climax of the three Gales Brothers, all left-handed, lining the front of the stage and trading guitar licks was something to behold.

Brief, rousing sets by Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys and Cissy Houston opened the show, highlighted by Fountain's trip into the mosh pit during "If I Had a Hammer" and Houston's thrilling gospelization of Marvin Gaye's "How Sweet It Is," backed by the house band (John Porter, musical director) and 11 -strong Voices of L.A. choir.

Sets by singer-guitar slingers Paul Black, Becky Barksdale and John Mooney followed. Black's buzz-saw solos were accompanied by an accomplished harmonica player for a set of highly amplified country blues. Barksdale's playing is more English-style blues and seemed to impress the audience greatly. And Son House disciple Mooney, accompanied only by a conga player, brought back fond memories of the old Cambridge, Mass., folk-blues scene.

Probably the most conventionally commercial act of the evening was Jimmy Rip. Bedecked in a flashy, metallic jacket, Rip supplied the evening's strongest piece of original material, the thus-far unrecorded "(You Don't Get the Blues) The Blues Gets You," an anthem in the making.