A Michael Jackson hit rejiggered as a blues, by a Canadian. It’s enough to make your head hurt. But in a good way.
David Gogo plays this music, found on his new album Soul-Bender on Cordova Bay Records, with a concussive menace. When he sings “just kiss me baby, and tell me twice – that you’re the one for me,” it has all of the scary salaciousness of a last-call bar-stool come on.
That’s saying something, when you start thinking about the Michael Jackson part, the rejiggered as a blues part, the Canadian part. It has to be the most dangerous this song has ever sounded, or maybe the only time it has ever sounded dangerous at all.
I loved it – and David Gogo – for that. Elsewhere, he tears through a quartet of formidable originals and a set of covers that includes Elmore James (sure), Wilson Pickett (whoa) and Robin Trower (cool!). As good – as, yes, soul-bending – as it all is, none of it compares to “The Way You Make Me Feel.”
It made me feel like digging out my old Michael Jackson records (living off the wall, yeah!) – and finding out a whole lot more about David Gogo.
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- Nick DeRiso’s Best of 2015 (Rock + Pop): Death Cab for Cutie, Joe Jackson, Toto + Others - January 18, 2016
- Nick DeRiso’s Best of 2015 (Blues, Jazz + R&B): Boz Scaggs, Gavin Harrison, Alabama Shakes - January 10, 2016
- Nick DeRiso’s Best of 2015 (Reissues + Live): John Oates, Led Zeppelin, Yes, Faces + others - January 7, 2016
