Album Reviews

Debbie Bond

Enjoy The Ride

Artist:     Debbie Bond

Album:     Enjoy The Ride

Label:     Blue Root Productions

Release Date:     04/08/2016

86

Often likened to Bonnie Raitt, Alabama blues-lady Debbie Bond’s latest release, Enjoy The Ride, kicks off strongly with an upbeat, optimistic surge of soul and passion on the title track before shifting a few gears with introspective inner searching reaching out in tracks “Start With Love,” the dizzying despair and combative edge of “Left Me In The Dark,” and the reflective beauty of “Remedy.”

Throughout, Bond’s fine fretwork is confident and compelling, carrying the whole mix along with power and purpose. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, with full-on horns and Shoals-sounding quality, Enjoy The Ride is easily Bond’s finest effort to date, bursting with sensitivity and a soulful delivery that show heartache and hurt, love and loss will always be winning combinations.

Bond’s previous album, That Thing Called Love, featured her partner Radiator Rick Asherson on Harp and Keys, and he again figures strongly here. Her love and affection for the late Alabama bluesman Willie King, whom she played with for many years, is also evident with an excellent cover of one of his anthems, “I Am The Blues” included in the mix. Add some quality support guitar flourishes from Will McFarlane (ex-Bonnie Raitt) and Spooner Odham on organ, one of the US’s finest sidemen, and you have an album of considerable class, style and quality.

– Iain Patience

Got something to say?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Be the first to comment!