|  By
Cornbread
 Matthew
Robinson – Bad Habits
{1998 | Fedora Records}
Matthew
Robinson, born February 27, 1948 in Austin,
Texas. In ’64 he and schoolmates formed
the Mustangs (they had a huge hit – Tender
Loving Care), which toured with James Brown,
Jimmy Reed, Big Mama Thornton and Johnny Winter.
Now over thirty years later Robinson gives us
Bad Habits. After a couple of listenings, Cornbread
says it was worth the wait!
Robinson
describes his music as the result of the natural
evolution of gospel, R&B, blues and the
Texas sound he grew up around.
Matthew
Robinson - vocals & guitar; Larry
D.C. Williams - saxophone; Donald
"Duck" Jennings - trumpet;
Mickey "Tickey" Bennett
- keyboards; Eddie James Stout
- bass; and William Norman Fagen
- drums
Track
listings:
1. Got To Leave This Woman
– a solid bass shuffle, organ highlights,
sax throughout, and James Brown’esque
vocals.
2. Mr. Pawnbroker – vocals
are secondary, the guitar playing makes the
song.
3. You Just Can’t Take My Blues
– man this is a great blues song, plenty
of guitar and excellent vocals.
4. Sunday Morning Love –
vocals are dominant and have a ton of emotion.
It’s a bluesy/jazzy combo with the guitar/vocals
and backing saxophone.
5. Just Your Fool – another
blues funk song. Blues funk don’t you
love it? I do.
6. I’m Gonna Stop You From Giving
Me The Blues – good song, I can
picture Tony T. doing this song and bringing
the crowd to their knees.
7. Sugar Sweet – I liked
the guitar solo.
8. Don’t Lose Your Cool
– a fast tune with a big band sound, really
good guitar instrumental.
9. My Tomorrow – the
guitar was blues at its best, the rest of the
song was OK.
10. Give Me My Blues –
lots of soul, “I can play a blues song
all night long, some people seem to dig it y’all.”
11. West Side Baby –
I liked the organ playing, getting tired of
hearing horn playing though.
12. Bad Habits – a rock
solid blues shuffle and rock solid song. I liked
this song.
As a side note for you instrument heads (I’m
one of the biggest) - the guitar pictured on
the album cover sure looks a lot like a B.B.
King Gibson Lucille.
Bad
Habits is a good CD, the vocals and guitar playing
was right on, less horn and more piano or harmonica
would’a been a good thing. Rating 3.977.
Ciao' for now, peace.
Peter 'Cornbread'
Cohen, CBP
Email - Cornbread@STLBlues
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