Sleepy LaBeef Tomorrow Never Comes CD

Personnel includes: Sleepy LaBeef (vocals, guitar); David Hughes (guitar, piano, background vocals); Jerry Cavanagh (harmonica, drums, background vocals); Maria Muldaur (vocals); Jim Davis (saxophone); Dave Pomeroy (bass); Jeff "Gator" McKinley (upright bass); Jerry Rogers (background vocals).
Engineers: Graham Lewis, George Clinton, Fred Guarino.
Personnel: Sleepy LaBeef (vocals, guitar); Maria Muldaur (vocals); David Hughes (guitar, piano, background vocals).
Liner Note Author: Geoffrey Himes.
Recording information: Bayou Studios, Nashville, TN (01/20/2000-01/21/2000); Emerald Sound, Nashville, TN (01/20/2000-01/21/2000); Glen Cove, NY (01/20/2000-01/21/2000); TIKI Studios (01/20/2000-01/21/2000).
Photographer: Beth Gwinn.
On his first studio album in four years, the big man with the big baritone voice and a seemingly limitless knowledge of classic rock & roll, blues, country, gospel, and honky-tonk, pumps out another 14 tracks of joyful genre crossing roots music. Not a songwriter, LaBeef reinterprets classics like Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business," Big Joe Turner's "Honey Hush," and Tony Joe White's "Polk Salad Annie" as if he wrote the tunes himself, filtering them though his own eclectic influences. There aren't many artists who sound as comfortable blowing through the surf instrumental "Wipeout," then immediately nuzzling up to Maria Muldaur as a duet partner on the following track with a bluesy cover of Slim Harpo's "Raining in My Heart," but LaBeef makes it seem simple and natural. At 65, he's refined his unique approach, which he's been honing for the past 40 years, but that doesn't mean there aren't surprises here. Even when the singer tackles hoary fare like "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," it seems fresh and inspired. Obscure covers from Hank Williams ("The Blues Come Around,") and Ernest Tubb (the title track) show LaBeef's depth of knowledge from his sources, and place him as one of the most talented and under-recognized interpreters of traditional C&W...and blues...and rock & roll. Sleepy LaBeef may not do it all, but he does a lot and, most importantly, on Tomorrow Never Comes he makes it look easy. ~ Hal Horowitz
Sleepy LaBeef was 65 when he recorded this album in early 2000; his rich baritone seems to grow deeper with the passing years. He can resonate in the lowest reaches, rise up for a mid-range growl, and head back down again (on "I Want To Be Loved" he does it all). His regular trio of piano, bass, and drums joins him here in a set similar to what he's been playing in roadhouses for decades. Maria Muldaur joins him on "Raining in My Heart" and "Will the Circle Be Unbroken"; her feisty singing playfully dances around the big man's.
The selections draw from what have become 20th century classics: Chuck Berry's "Too Much Monkey Business," Earl Flatt and Lester Scruggs's "Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms," and Tony Joe White's "Polk Salad Annie" among them. LaBeef's guitar is the stringed equivalent of his expressive low-register voice. With recordings dating back to the '50s, Sleepy LaBeef has simply never stopped celebrating the music he loves.No Depression (1-2/01, p.88) - "...The performances are uniformly excellent and the accompanying musicians sympathetic....there is a whole lot of love on this record....a fine introduction to this underappreciated icon."