HowellDevine – Modern Sounds of Ancient Juju / Arhoolie CD-550

Description

Arhoolie CD 550

“HowellDevine plays The Music with the original feel and intent and spirit and you can tell they love the music while delivering some real blues in their own way. The singing and playing is never strained and they play with easy confidence…they don’t have to prove anything. There’s tasty slide and harp and rhythm with relaxed vocals that all blend together for a wonderfully satisfying experience. Any blues fan will love this new CD from HowellDevine.”

   –from the album liner notes by 2014 Grammy winner & Blues legend Charlie Musselwhite

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In 2013 Arhoolie Records released our first new blues record in 25 years HowellDevine’s acclaimed Jumps Boogies & Wobbles (CD 544). Now the blues trio is back with another penetrating soulful album. Joshua Howell Pete Devine and Joe Kyle Jr. play in a style evocative of the Mississippi juke joints of the ‘30s and ‘40s but bring an energy and spirit all their own.

Check their website for upcoming shows: HowellDevine website.

1. Can’t Be Satisfied
2. It Won’t Be Long Now
3. She Brought Life Back to the Dead
4. Let You Go
5. Sweet to Mama
6. Woogie Man
7. House in the Field
8. Shake ‘Em On Down
9. It’s Too Late Brother
10. Rollin’ in Her Arms
11. Railroad Stomp – Live in Pt. Richmond CA

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REVIEWS

“For blues lovers the quest is eternal in trying to find those that hit the monkey without ever sliding over into monotony or downright perfection. Blues is a messy business at its core and there is no room for anything less. Instead it’s all about feeling and finding that road into the heart where music cures the pain of living and losing. (Josh)Howell gets there so directly it’s hard to believe he hasn’t been playing side-by-side with Rice “Sonny Boy Williamson” Miller the past 70 years. There’s the perfect mix of old and new songs with a syncopated side order of washboard and HowellDevine’s righteous guitar and vocals. Juju is in the house and it’s time to let it out.”

Bill Bentley “Bentley’s Bandstand” @ The Morton Report -Dec. 2014 

 

“There is no blues band performing today as different as HowellDevine—nor as delightful. On the San Francisco/Oakland Bay Area trio’s third CD (and second for Arhoolie) singer guitarist and harmonica blower Joshua Howell drummer and washboard scraper Pete Devine and upright bassist Joe Kyle Jr. romp with wild abandon through an 11-song set of tunes by Muddy Waters Rice Miller Frank Stokes Bukka White Little Walter along with five originals.

It’s old-timey stuff for sure but rendered with new twists. They may call those twists “modern” yet they draw rhythmically on the syncopations of jug bands and jazz combos of long-ago times especially Devine with his use of rubboard tambourine temple block and other percussion devices as part of a standard snare–toms–bass drum–cymbals kit. Howell handles all the vocals in sturdy low-tenor tones as he alternates between acoustic and electric guitars fingerpicking much of the time or sliding a bottleneck along the strings. Rather than use a rack harmonica he puts his guitar down on several occasions presses the harp to his lips and blows in a manner that reflects his fondness for Sonny Boy Williamson II. His rendering of Williamson’s She Brought Life Back to the Dead is particularly chilling. Yet even when nobody is playing chords the ensemble sound is remarkably full thanks to Lyle’s steady walking bass lines and Devine’s wondrously intensive percussion work.

The set-closing Railroad Stomp an instrumental recorded during a nightclub performance in Point Richmond California easily ranks as one of the most amazing train tunes ever. Songs that mimic the sounds of steam locomotives have long been crowd-pleasers for DeFord Bailey Sonny Terry and other harp blowers. Much as Bailey did on his 1928 classic Pan American Blues Howell simulates the noises made by a train as it speeds up and slows down. The current trio takes it a step further with Howell replicating the starting whistle and chugga chugga of the engine as its speed increases. As Kyle’s bass anchors the bottom while the tempo accelerates and decelerates Devine adds ringing bells at the beginning and end and as the train races down the tracks accentuates the train’s movement with a tambourine atop his hi-hat and rapid stick strokes between his snare and tom-tom. With Railroad Stomp and the other selections on Modern Sounds of Ancient Juju HowellDevine are clearly on the right track to greater notoriety.”

Lee Hildebrand Living Blues

“With a credit from Charlie Musselwhite to spur them on Howell Devine – Joshua Howell and Pete Devine – should be rightly proud of the music they have created here. The music is Blues in the classic style acoustic and without the unnecessary hoopla of modern Blues but well enough recorded that the music is fresh and modern too. The true test of a band playing is their treatment of classics and the opener here is Muddy Waters Can’t Be Satisfied given a country Blues treatment: Howell’s slide is superb and with Pete Devine’s drums skittering and clicking away it feels light and airy but still has the feel of the original – Joe Kyle Jr. delivers some steadfast upright bass anchoring the track and all round it is a cracking way to open. Frank Stokes wrote It Won’t Be Long Now in around 1925 and with Devine adding washboard to Howell’s clean acoustic sound it has all the feel of the original but presented beautifully. Stokes Sweet Mama loses some of the dirtiness of the original but gains a sense of innocence that makes for an interesting listen. Sonny Boy Williamson gets a look in with a chilling She Brought Life Back To The Dead with Howell wailing on harp alongside washboard and that wonderful bass from Kyle. It goes on with numbers written by the likes of Booker T Al White and a nod to Howlin’ Wolf but the numbers written by Howell & Devine and well up to the classics and Woogie Man jams along with a great sense of “we’re going and we’ll get there but meantime let’s just chill” to it. Personal favorite is their version of Bukka White’s Shake Em On Down where they add a swamp feel to their sound. Howell Devine & Kyle have a long history playing with some major names in American music but this album feels as though they have found the right place for them and the album is a cracker.”

Andy Snipper Blues Matters

 

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From Lee Hildebrand’s album notes to HowellDevine’s earlier album Jumps Boogies & Wobbles

The players are thoroughly steeped in old-school traditions yet they are no mere revivalists and instead approach their material with a fun-filled sense of adventure. Howell’s singing…is strong yet never forced his prowess on both Epiphone Dot 335 and National Duolian resonator guitars is awe-inspiring and his unamplified harmonica work draws favorable comparison to his heroes Sonny Terry Rice Miller and Little Walter. Behind Howell Devine and the bassist churn up an amazing array of syncopated rhythms. Devine incorporates a washboard that rests on his lap into a standard kit of Gretsch drums and Zildjian cymbals as he complements the bassist’s propulsive frequently slapped patterns.

Joshua Howell was born in San Francisco on January 13 1974 and was inspired early on by the blues records in his parents’ collection. He took up harmonica at age 14 in the hope that it would help him stop biting his nails – it didn’t work – and guitar at 16. At 17 he often sat in at the now-legendary Oakland blues joints Eli’s Mile High Club and Your Place Too. He spent eight years building classical guitars before relocating to Pai a town in northern Thailand that boasts an international artists’ community. There he traveled by Moped between different bars and restaurants playing three or four one-hour sets per night at each one until after three years he was arrested jailed and deported for having worked without a permit. In July 2011 a year after returning home to San Francisco he hooked up with Devine.

Pete Devine was born in Portland Maine on May 5 1968 and as a child played along on pots and pans with his grandmother’s Louis Armstrong Duke Ellington and Spike Jones records. (Jones he notes was an outstanding washboard player.) He got his first set of drums when he was 6 and to this day uses the Ludwig bass drum pedal that came with it. Drummers Baby Dodds Zutty Singleton Francis Clay Fred Below and Earl Palmer rank high on his list of influences. He settled in San Francisco in 1989 a year before his 15 years with Bo Grumpus ended. His extensive resume also includes stints with Lavay Smith Mal Sharpe the gypsy jazz band Gaucho Maria Muldaur and his own Devine’s Jug Band.

On October 28 2012 HowellDevine was selected by the Golden Gate Blues Society to represent Northern California in Blues Foundation’s 29th International Blues Challenge in Memphis from January 29 to February 3 2013. That showcase along with the release of Jumps Boogies & Wobbles is sure to serve wide notice of a sound that’s both old and breathtakingly new.

Lee Hildebrand is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle and Living Blues