Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - Tell 'em What Your Name Is (2009) repost

Anatomy texts might not show it, but the greatest soul and blues music leaves no doubt that the hip bone is directly connected to the heart –– a fact that’s driven home in every note laid down by Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears. As they prove on their Lost Highway debut, Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is, the Austin–based combo has the kind of gritty attitude and deliciously greasy groove–consciousness that’d pass muster in the toughest juke joint.
To paraphrase Ike and Tina Turner, Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is gives Lewis the chance to play nice and easy as well as nice and rough. He and his bandmates take the latter route more often –– as on the fiery, brass–laced opener “Gunpowder” and the unabashedly horndog anthem “Big Booty Woman.” But there’s far more than one trick up their collective sleeve, as borne out by the dark New Orleans march “Master Sold My Baby.”
“It’s weird…people say I come up with all these different kinds of songs, and I guess that’s true, but they all just come out naturally,” says Lewis, who cites James Brown and Lightnin’ Hopkins as two of his bigger influences. “If I sit down and try to write a song, it just sounds contrived. All the songs on this record, I just made up as I went along. I couldn’t do a lot of ‘em again if I didn’t have ‘em on tape.”
That from–the–gut stream–of–consciousness permeates the disc, with Lewis wailing wildly –– in a voice that’s one part Joe Tex, one part Tyrone Davis –– through sweat–soaked offerings like the gutbucket “I’m Broke” and “Please, Part Two” as his bandmates turn up the heat, taking a low simmer to a full boil with turn–on–a–dime precision.
“The thing about the band is that we play with each other, not against each other,” says Honeybears’ guitarist Zach Ernst. “It’s not a pissing contest, the way it is in some bands. We communicate with each other without speaking, and I think that has a lot to do with Joe’s attitude –– he has an amazing ability to just draw people in. For a lot of people, the blues is a museum piece, but Joe brings it into the moment.”
If not for a twist of fate, Lewis might never have gotten up on stage at all. Growing up in the small town of Round Rock, Texas, he was more likely to be found on the football field than in the band room –– but landing a job in an Austin pawn shop put him at a (shall we say) crossroads in life.
“My dad and my uncles listened to soul and blues when I was a kid, but I never really took much notice,” says Lewis. “When I was about 19 or 20, I was working in this pawn shop and all these guys would bring in guitars. One day, I started playing around with one and took it home and started teaching myself how to play.”
Buoyed by the encouragement of friends, Lewis soon gravitated to the fertile open mic scene of his adopted hometown, where he performed as a solo artist, a period he now laughingly recalls as “horrible…I was usually too drunk or too scared to put on a good show, but people kept asking me to come back.”
While he eventually put together a band with a solid lineup, Lewis couldn’t capture the mojo he was looking for and was seriously considering retiring from music in his mid–twenties –– until Ernst entered the picture.
“I was on the [University of Texas] programming board and we’d booked Little Richard to do a show and I immediately thought of Joe,” says the guitarist. “I heard he was down on music and was woking at a restaurant shucking oysters, so I approached him as a fan –– and Joe ended up playing the show with his old band.”
The plea worked, the gig was explosive, but also a partnership was born. Shortly after that gig, Zach formed a band around Joe and the rough and ready Honeybears’ were born. Four weeks later, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears played their first gig. Their stylings quickly drew attention from local tastemakers –– like the Austin Chronicle, which marveled at the singer’s ability to “spit lyrics in short bursts of aggression like bricks at glass windows” –– and fellow musicians like Okkervil River and Spoon, both of which tapped him and the Honeybears to hit the road as an opening act.
“Joe‘s a really special, really natural performer,” says Spoon drummer Jim Eno, who thought enough of the band to lend his production skills to the new disc. “We were able to do about 75–percent of the album live, and that’s something you very, very rarely do.” (blackjoelewis.com)


This major-label debut from Austin-based retro soul man Black Joe Lewis is reminiscent of the '60s R&B albums he so clearly adores, right down to its 30-minute playing time. Only one song breaks the four-minute barrier, with the rest at three and some just over two. Fans of the J. Geils Band's initial handful of releases will recognize the same "nuthin' but a house party" influences at work here, with perhaps less blues and more high-octane soul shouting. Lewis' snappy guitar peppers these tunes, but it's the eight-piece horn-enhanced Honeybears that provide the grease for these musical wheels. That's especially true on the instrumental "Humpin'," a succulent slice of Stax-styled funk. This is hardcore, raw, unvarnished music that aims straight for the pelvis. Throw James Brown, Sam & Dave, and Wilson Pickett into a deep fryer and you're close to Lewis' knockout vocal attack. Jim Eno's production stays hands-off, like it should be, letting this tightly knit ensemble do what it does naturally with no interference. This is so authentic that if slipped into a mix of likeminded '60s R&B, only a handful would peg it as a 2009 release as opposed to one from four decades earlier. The band is as adept at laying down the steamy, slow funk stew of "I'm Broke" as it is the peppy call-and-response singalong "Big Booty Woman." Based on that title and others such as "Master Sold My Baby" (an unusual deep Southern serving of R.L. Burnside/Junior Kimbrough blues), Lewis won't win any awards from women's rights organizations, but this music is so vibrant and uplifting that few will care. Fun, frisky, lascivious, and impossible to stay seated to, Black Joe Lewis has successfully tapped into a hip-shaking old-school groove that never seems forced and is completely contagious. by Hal Horowitz


If This CD Doesn't Get You Movin'...You're Dead!!!!

Gunpowder
Sugarfoot
I’m Broke
Big Booty Woman
Boogie
Master Sold My Baby
Get Yo Shit
Humpin’
Bobby Booshay
Please Pt. Two