Phat Fred Don't Spoil The Soup! CD

Spanish retro-funk groove merchants Phat Fred are a bit of a puzzlement: although their sound is proudly, blatantly derivative, the quartet bite from so many different sources that they end up sounding more unique than they perhaps intended. On the vocal tracks, the sound is as unapologetically white and beat-oriented as Steve Marriott in the early Small Faces days, but musically, the primary influences seem to be '70s soul-jazz outfits like the Blackbyrds and, oddly, the brittle, jerky Brit-funk of early-'80s outfits like Pigbag and A Certain Ratio (especially on the hyper "Home Sweet Home"). As a result, Don't Spoil the Soup ends up being a pretty oddball blend of sounds that don't fit neatly into any particular or easy retro bandwagon. The combination of a solid Hammond organist and a funky chicken-scratch guitar player is always welcome, however, so Phat Fred deliver on that score, at least. ~ Stewart Mason

Fans of ragged, heavily amplified country blues, take note: Searching for Odell Harris, is now available!Harris is a 66-year-old singer and electric blues guitarist from the hills of North Mississippi. His music shares much in common with that of his late friends, R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. But he also was influenced as a young man by the blues of his uncle-by-marriage Albert King and his cousin William Bell, who went on to become a soul legend at Stax Records in the 1960s and 1970s. Harris’ sound manages to marry the primal hill-funk of the Burnside/Kimbrough nexus and the greasy strut of a century of coarse Memphis blues. The 12 tracks that make up Searching for Odell Harris range from gripping solo performances of blues standards like “.44 Blues,” “Laughing To Keep From Crying” and “Sitting on Top of the World,” to raucous band performances featuring support from Mississippi native Bill Abel on guitar and Steve Lightnin’ Malcolm on drums and bass. Abel has backed everyone from David “Honeyboy” Edwards and Henry Townsend to Sam Carr and Big George Brock. Malcolm has worked extensively with Jimbo Mathus, the Burnside Exploration and such elder statesmen of the blues as T Model Ford, Cedell Davis, Robert Belfour and Jimmy “Duck” Holmes. Searching for Odell Harris was recorded during a single all-night recording session on the gulf coast of Mississippi. The name of the disc alludes to Harris’ legendary elusiveness. He rarely performs in spaces more public than a friend’s living room or front porch. The CD is the first for Harris and the second for the label, which made waves earlier this year with the release of Back to Bentonia by Jimmy “Duck” Holmes.*******Searching for Odell Harris is profiled on the cover of the new Red Lick catalog. For those who don't know Red Lick, it's a mammoth mail order company in the UK that supplies blues and related music to customers all over Europe.Here's what they had to say about Searching for Odell Harris:Odell HarrisSearching for Odell HarrisBroke & Hungry BH13002Odell Harris is one bluesman that Fat Possum didn’t find, but if they had got to him first, I think they’d have been proud to produce a CD that sounds like this.Where’s he from? He’s a secretive type who, once every blue moon, performs at some back country blues joint or a local barbecue but more often than not contents himself with playing on the back porches of neighbours and friends. I’m not sure if he’s ever been recorded before but I seem to have heard the name – maybe on one of those obscure Flyright field-trip country blues releases. The notes give no clue as to his origins but he does tend to play in the style of the Mississippi hill country musicians. “Hill Funk,” for instance, is an instrumental full of choppy, over-amplified guitar licks slapped over bill Abel’s funky, angular guitar ramblings, and that’s Lightnin’ Malcolm walloping the hell out of the snare drum. It’s certainly a funky work out with Odell changing the mood all the time.At times, t