Danny Bryant’s Redeyeband Days Like This

Blues Matters Records BMRCD20058

I’ll make no excuses, I know Danny well and I’ve seen him grow from a young mid teenage Hertfordshire wannabe player to the international star he is today. Seeing him receive a rapturous standing ovation from 2000 fans was some experience too I can tell you. The chances are I’m going to like this CD. Let’s see what Danny’s 4th Blues Matters Records release is like. As always, Ken Bryant the reliable stalwart of the band plays Fender Precision Bass on this album, but it's the first Redeyeband album the mega experienced Dave Raeburn has been featured on.  

The first track was familiar to me as I already had the song on an EP long before Danny was a signed artist. Entitled Losing Game, it’s a really nice song, medium slow in tempo with Danny’s superb guitar playing and now re-mastered with Danny’s more mature vocals and modern blues lyrics. This song is excellent, one I've always loved.

As a tribute to great Ronnie Earl comes Earl Shuffle, a fast and hard driving shuffle instrumental. The tribute is very accurate, although it is an original piece. With Ken Bryant on Fender bass and Dave Raeburn on drums, it’s brilliant and a very fitting tribute to Ronnie Earl, with beautifully toned guitar. Danny’s Fender amplifier certainly has what it takes to please.

It’s been Danny Bryant’s dream and ambition to record with his mentor, Walter Trout, and with this track, Days Like This has realised his ambition. With Ken and Dave playing a steady beat, the dramatic down and dirty blues in the key of C lasts for 8 minutes 15 seconds and has you hanging on to every last note. It’s extravagant yes, but it’s everything a good blues should be. Good lyrics, face contorting guitar bends, and gut wrenching emotion. This track has it all. To the trained ear, the listener knows which guitarist is playing what, but to the uninitiated, the quality is equal throughout, only the accents are slightly different. What a fantastic creation. It is wonderful, everything a good guitar blues should be.

The style changes but the quality doesn’t as the 4th track, Heart Working Overtime chugs into a lusty song which includes the lyric “...Got the love sickness over you…” This a rocky kind of song with power chords a-chuggin’ with overdubbed guitar themes. Great inclusion to spice up the album!

Rory Gallagher played an excellent instrumental entitled Maritime on his Irish Tour '74 LP. Danny has equalled that and took his own instrumental composition a little further. Danny has done what Rory did with the instrumental Back in Baltimore. It is dedicated to Kirby Bryant’s late Grandfather back in the Emerald Isle. OK, Baltimore is in the States I hear you say but there must be a connection. Without all the reasons for the song, it stands on its own as a brilliant track, so pleasant to listen to with it’s tastefully wah wah tinged flavouring.

The next track is an original but it has some obvious Peter Green leanings. A number of great artists have borrowed the style of Green’s Long Grey Mare and Danny has manufactured a high quality song in the same style entitled Long Time Coming. It’s a great interpretation of that style of rock-blues and full marks to Danny for his interpretation which includes some tonally excellent guitar work. It certainly is a beautiful tone on the guitar. 

Danny pays tribute to his friend, the Norfolk artist Robin Elvin, with the song Last Man Standing. Robin created a portrait of the same name featuring an old soldier with a poppy in his weather beaten flat hat. It’s a poignant creation and Danny has done so well to write a song to match the emotional value of the portrait. Even in an album of great compositions, this stands out as a potential classic. Along with Days Like This, it’s my favourite on the CD.

An Eddie Boyd style of blues hears Danny and Redeyeband’s superb rhythm section perform Blues All Over Me. An excellent blues it is too with Danny’s gruff but pleasing vocals and eternally superb guitar playing, a style reminiscent of the Five Long Years blues. The lyrics are excellent too, as are all Danny’s compositions.

The CD album finishes with Always With Me, another archived song from Danny’s early writing career. It’s a fine song with emotionally charged guitar and in a unique way. A good album closer but it's not an anti climax, it's a beautiful song.

To summarise, I’ll be blunt, it’s a bloody superb album. As with the previous three of Danny’s Blues Matters Records albums, this one contains an eclectic mix of styles, all of equal value and enjoyment. There are no album fillers, every track stands up on its own merits and the sum total of this results in the best album yet from our home-grown bluesman, Danny Bryant. Buy with confidence.

Steve Lally