After putting out guitarist D.K. Harrell’s The Right Man last year, 2024 looks to be another banner year for Little Village. Because—surprise! surprise!—Fine By Me serves notice that Curtis Salgado is sitting atop a stack of freshly-penned material showcasing a voice that has accumulated a pallet of Blues Music Awards, including Soul-Blues Male Artist of the Year and B.B. King Entertainer of the Year. Here, more so than on 2021’s Damage Control or 2016’s The Beautiful Lowdown, the singing blues-harpist roams freest, crossing stylistic borders without pledging allegiance to any one genre for too long.
For instance: Interesting opening move. In the offbeat lyrical perspective of “My Girl’s a Nut”—which pulls off rhyming “wish” with “doggie dish”—you can hear that intrepid, unpredictable spirit taking shape. Being cast as a swampy, roadhouse stomp only adds to its eccentricity. The horns arrive by the second track. Then again, horns typically arrive whenever Salgado is at his most soulful. Their beaming presence makes “Better Things to Lie About” all the more grabby, bright, and punchy. But, by that point, when the next zig will zag is anyone’s guess.
That leeway takes no time to kick into effect. Soon enough, “Fine By Me” plays out its dream sequence with historical figures as a sleek rocker. The big fun of “The Big Chagrin” runs on billowing horns, Salgado’s flyaway harmonica (he harps nearly half the setlist) and a spirited roll fit for the New Orleans parade route. “Safe at Home” streamlines like early-Sixties pop, right down to its clean-cut harmonies. “Cheap Stuff” separates itself as the gritty shout-along with some massive, gnarly guitars circling around and around, down and down. “Niki Hoeky” lives up to its reputation as an extra-sticky piece of Swamp rock that caught everyone from Bobby Rush and the Ventures to Bobbie Gentry and Aretha Franklin. Salgado’s turn at the earworm is every bit a three-minute dance party. Stripped bare and fit for a clapboard chapel, “Hear the Lonely Hearts” holds church … for love. Tucked in a deep, lightly swinging pocket formed by the three Sons of the Soul Revivers’ heavenly vocal blend, Salgado testifies for the forlorn with smoldering expression and ecstatic house-wrecking hollers. Have mercy: Never has his potent voice sounded more spectacular. And also aiding the latitude across these 12 tracks is a studio full of shapeshifters, including chameleonic guitarist Kid Andersen (Rick Estrin & the Nightcats) and his singing wife, Lisa Leuschner, who share a new double-disc album of their own, Spirits and Soul, also on Little Village.
Now if you hadn’t yet met Salgado, it may help to know he carries quite the backstory. Ever heard of the Blues Brothers, Jake and Elwood Blues? You can thank Salgado for lighting that flame by turning actor/comedian John Belushi onto blues and soul music in 1977 during a chance, off-set meeting during the filming of National Lampoon's Animal House. In return, Salgado was officially thanked by having Cab Calloway’s character in the film—Curtis—named after him in homage. Plus, the Blues Brothers’ Briefcase Full of Blues record is personally dedicated to Salgado.
Not bad, huh? But the legend keeps growing. Belushi’s blues-download took place in Eugene, Oregon, Salgado’s hometown, where he helped co-lead the formative Robert Cray Band into the early-1980s. Then came a Roomful of Blues stint during the mid-’80s. And don’t forget that Summer of ’95, singing on the road as part of Santana. But if you ever run into Curtis, be sure to ask about that wild-eyed time living with Sonny Rhodes in Oakland. Or any of the numerous tales of hanging with Albert Collins or Floyd “Hey Bartender” Dixon. He is filled with great stories galore.
So, when reconvening with Cray to once again lay into soul man O.V. Wright's “Gonna Forget About You”—44 years after doing so on Who’s Been Talkin,’ the RCB’s debut record—there is prehistory in how their voices still race one another up the refrain’s steep grade to the tip-top. The excitement has only heightened this time around.
Then Anson Funderburgh’s bellyaching guitar arrives, and everything turns blue. “Under New Management” and “You Give the Blues a Bad Name” share uptown arrangements lined by a bank of horns. The former, lifted by wry optimism and a graceful bounce that incite Salgado’s harmonica to fly again; the latter, laden with luxuriant disdain and plummeting downbeats that let a baritone saxophone play the heavy. Both are fodder for Funderburgh’s hot T-Bone Walker-esque lines sharply darting about like heat lightning. And both—along with the whole lot of Fine By Me—get stamped with Salgado’s telltale way of chewing on a lyric. There can be no doubt Curtis is the one behind the mic.
Label: Little Village
Release Date: 6/30/24
Artist Website: www.curtissalgado.com
Reviewed by Dennis Rozanski
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