Larry Howard
Cornerstone Blues Jam, Vol. 1
Reviewed by Arsenio Orteza
Live blues jams are a lot more fun in theory than in real life. Like, when was the last time you just couldn't wait to hear one? My guess is most of us would rather hear almost anything but a live blues jam 364 days out of the year.
Nevertheless, it remains an entrenched part of rock concert decorum to whoop and howl and act really soulful at the first twang of a tenth-generation Howlin' Wolf lick, and basically it's hypocritical because most of us listen to Garth Brooks these days when we're depressed.
At least that's what the research shows. So whatcha gonna do with this primarily upbeat artifact, a live-at-Cornerstone blues jam featuring the ex-Grinderswitch frontman Larry Howard, the ex-Grand Funk frontman Mark Farner, the ex-Paul Simon supporting act Jessy Dixon, the ex-High Inergy disco diva Vernessa Mitchell, and ccm-ers like Glenn Kaiser, Margaret Becker, Darrell Mansfield (who played harmonica on a Bon Jovi song once after saying in Cornerstone magazine that we shouldn't see PG films, didn't he?), and this album's producer, Eddie DeGarmo?
Well, you'll probably play it all the way through two or three times then program your favorite bits from then on, skipping lots of meandering and fairly pedestrian boogie in the process.
Possible favorite bits: the Mahalia Jackson medley (titled "Mahalia Medley") because Mitchell does a pretty good recreation of the late gospel queen's exuberance and phrasing; "Operator" because Dixon's loose run-through rescues a song that in the mouths of the Manhattan Transfer flirts—no, beds down—with hyper-cutesiness; Howard's hushed, acoustic "Presence of the Lord" because you've lost, worn out, or sold your Eric Clapton and Larry Norman versions.
Or some might prefer Howard's pre-"Mahalia Medley" sermonette, wherein he gets big cheers for lines like, "There are too many walls in the Body of Christ," then promises to tear those walls down (where's Eddie Money when you need him?) with the Mahalia songs. He's right, sort of, about the walls, I mean. He even says, at one point, that we have "too many denominations." But Robert Frost also had a good point when he said, "Good fences make good neighbors," and frankly I think walls in general, ever since the crumbling of the Berlin one, are underrated. Where else you gonna hang the Argus posters?
If you've never heard Howard sing, he kind of sounds like Randy Matthews, who's not on this album but should be. And if you've never heard a live album that you want to hear half as much as the studio versions of any songs you can think of, this one won't change that for you.
3.5/5