If Tom Petty' excellent Highway Companion from last year would have rocked with a bit more fuzz, it probably would have sounded something like Weary and Wired – the official debut disc from former Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford. Even though Ford doesn't fancy himself a rocker, preferring to fuse folk, blues, jazz and country, this guy nevertheless will stomp all over your speakers with his boozy and groovy music that owes as much to The Black Crowes as it does to Petty, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Rolling Stones and Neil Young.
Reuniting with his former Burning Tree bandmates – blues rockers with whom Ford recorded a self-titled CD in the late 1980s that led to The Black Crowes gig – the singer and guitarist makes music from his gut. Black Crowes brothers Rich and Chris Robinson may have gotten the glory, but Ford is clearly the guy who kept the band flyin' with his involvement in The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, Amorica and Three Snakes and One Charm. (He did not appear on such later Crowes' albums as 1998's By Your Side and 2001's Lions.) On Weary and Wired, Ford sounds like more of the latter, playing mind-melting solos, particularly on "Smoke Signals," "Greazy Chicken" and "The Same Thing." While his vocals may seem a bit forced, he's at ease singing either blazing blues or easygoing ballads, and his confident playing will leave you hypnotized before reaching for some of the Crowes' deeper cuts.
Weary and Wired is welcome return from one of America's unheralded rock and blues guitarists.
Track Listing:
1) Featherweight Dreamland
2) Don't Come Around
3) It'll Be Over Soon
4) Dirty Girl
5) The Other Side
6) 1000 Ways
7) Smoke Signals
8) Greazy Chicken
9) Currents
10) Just Take the Money
11) Medicine Time
12) The Same Thing
13) Running Man Blues
14) Bye Bye Suzy
15) The Big Callback
Printer Friendly Page
Send to a Friend
