Editor's Choice #2...
Our second recommendation for today, is "Still Got the Blues", the eighth solo album by legendary guitarist Gary Moore, released on March 26, 1990.
This album features a fundamental change in Gary Moore's style and the transition from Hard Rock that characterized him in previous solo albums, to the Blues-Rock.
In this album, Gary Moore returns to the roots that shaped him musically. He grew on Albert King, "John Mayall's Bluesbreakers" and the legendary Peter Green and the first incarnation of "Fleetwood Mac". Moore returns here to these sources, combining the basic and rooted Blues with the thick and rough sound of Hard Rock, creating an amazing mix of the best of the two genres, literally, "Hard-Blues".
This album is quite a bit responsible for reviving the Blues genre and bringing it to the mainstream, but not only. It breathed a new and fresh spirit into Gary Moore's shuffling career and raised his popularity.
The album consists of material that Gary Moore wrote himself such as the opening song "Moving On" and the theme song "Still Got the Blues", as well as blues classics like "Oh Pretty Woman", "Walking By Myself" and more.
Moore gets to collaborate with his childhood heroes and even have a guitar duet with them, like the one with Albert King in the song "Oh Pretty Woman" and Albert Collins in the song "Too Tired".
In addition, the album has an interesting collaboration with George Harrison who wrote, composed, sang, and played guitar on the song "That Kind of Woman".
Gary Moore is revealed as a brilliant blues player who can translate his heavy solos and powerful riffs from Hard Rock and put them into the format of traditional Blues, while creating a tremendous and original "Blues-Rock".
Although seemingly this is a very specific style, this album is still very diverse. It has rhythmic and uplifting Blues, with optimistic rhythms like "Moving On" and "Too Tired" and it has melancholy, caressing, and melting Blues like "Still Got the Blues (For You)" and "Midnight Blues".
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music.