Artist: Lonestar Mojo
Album: Rough Around The Edges
Year Of Release: 2023
Format: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
1. This Time (4:51)
2. Victim Of The Blues (5:02)
3. Texas Drought (3:48)
4. Big As A Bus (5:53)
5. Low Down Dirty Side Of The Blues (4:37)
6. Heart Broke, No-Good, Nasty Loving Woman (4:09)
7. All I Have Left Is The Blues (4:21)
8. Not In The Groove (5:17)
9. Crazy Bout That Woman (4:33)
10. Texas Sky (6:48)
11. Gold Digger (4:35)
12. I Pity The Fool (5:42)
13. Fine And Nasty (4:37)
14. Humpty Dumpty (4:26)
15. Toppish Groove (5:58)
Personnel:
Joe Splawn: Hammond B3, Lead vocals and composer, tracks 2, 5, 7, 12 & 14
Mark Snyder: Lead and rhythm guitar, Lead vocal and composer, tracks 1, 4, 8, 13 & 15
Scott Biggs: Lead and rhythm guitar, Lead vocals and composer, tracks 3, 6, 9 & 11
Tim Maloney: Bass, Lead vocal and composer, track 10
Barry Sloan: Drums
They were the OG road warriors of the blues scene around Wichita Falls, Texas, five guys who each had half a century of touring and playing under his belt, all of whom had worked together off and on in various combinations going back to 1985. Then Covid hit. Work dried up. Joe Splawn, a Hammond B3 player with 57 years of stage time, called the other four. There wasn’t anything else going on, did the others want to get together and make an album? They did, and each of the fledgling band’s four songwriters brought their best material. The result is “Rough Around the Edges,” a hard-driving blues-rocker in the Texas tradition of ZZ Top, with a little Frank Zappa and B.B. King thrown in.
Each of the players has accomplished notable things in their long careers; Splawn’s earlier project, The Turner Blues Band, represented their region at the International Blues Challenge three times, the last time coming in fourth in the finals. The members have worked with Scott Ellison, worked with members of ZZ Top’s long-time opening act Point Blank, and toured with ELO, among other things. All that experience is on full display on “Rough Around the Edges,” a 15-track ramble through the rough, gritty landscape of Texas blues. The songs show the sophistica- tion of the players’ decades of songwriting; each is true to Texas blues tradition while made original and fresh with clever arrangements and catchy tunes. If it’s rough around the edges, it’s because that’s they way they like it, and so will you.
Blues Magazine
