#danny louis

[spilladabalia]

Gov't Mule - "Gold Dust Woman" ft. Grace Potter - Mountain Jam VI - 6/4/10

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Gov’t Mule - “Heavy Load”

Woke up singin’ a dead man’s song, Warren Haynes sings to open “Heavy Load.”

It’s something Haynes - one of the world‘s premier cover artists and member of the latter-day Allman Brothers Band and the (not Grateful) Dead - has done a lot of. But “Heavy Load” is an original and the lead single/nominal title track from Gov’t Mule’s Heavy Load Blues.

And though Heavy Load Blues is a group project - trumpeted as “the band’s first-ever blues album” - “Heavy Load” is a Haynes solo-slide-acoustic track.

“For me, personally, it's kind of been on my list of things to do for years,” Haynes said in a statement. “I didn’t know if it was gonna be a solo album or a Gov’t Mule record. … This album gave us a mission. … It’s not a blues/rock record - it’s a blues record. We wanted it sonically to sound different from a normal Gov’t Mule record.”

There are no guitar fireworks - just Haynes singing about blues themes like his woman leaving him; him leaving a lonesome town at nightfall; finding no relief; and being buried by the riverside.

Just let me play these heavy load blues, he sings toward the end of the seven-minute track.

Heavy Load Blues is slated for a Nov. 12 release.

Grade card: Gov’t Mule - “Heavy Load” - B

9/8/21

[rainingmusic]

Gov’t Mule - Thorazine Shuffle

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Warren Haynes and Danny Louis - “It Hurts Me Too” (Live, Sept. 13, 2020)

When Warren Haynes is in his element, he’s tough to beat.

And in 2020, his element is playing elementary blues - in this case Elmore James’ “It Hurts Me Too” - with his Gov’t Mule bandmate Danny Louis.

Recorded Sept. 13 in Connecticut, the video of the eight-minute duet was just released.

Easing back onto the concert stage with socially distanced performances such as this, Haynes stripped it down to Louis’ piano and his guitar and voice - that powerful, emotive, raspy voice that shines in arrangements such as this.

Haynes and Louis alternately solo and lay down foundations for solos as each gets as blue as he can. It’s simple music played anything but simply. And it reinforces the notion that Haynes is one of the best interpreters of his generation.

Grade card: Warren Haynes and Danny Louis - “It Hurts Me Too” (Live - 9/13/20) - A

9/21/20

[krispyweiss]

Song Review: Gov’t Mule - “Dreams & Songs”

Warren Haynes recycled his best-known Allman Brothers Band song and turned it into Gov’t Mule’s new single.

“Dreams & Songs” will appear on Gov’t Mule’s next album Revolution Come … Revolution Go, out June 9, and is cut from the same musical cloth as 1994’s “Soulshine.” But instead of thinking back to Daddy’s words as he did more than two decades ago, Haynes is now looking into his son’s eyes for inspiration.

It’s an autobiographical number in which Haynes addresses his reputation as the hardest-working man in rock ‘n’ roll.

A moving target is harder to kill/I never was one for taking it easy/or standing still

Accentuated with lush, wordless backing vocals and flecked with subtle keyboard fills, “Dreams & Songs” suffers from music that tries too hard to be dramatic and words that try too hard to be introspective. Like “Soulshine,” it’s full of nice sentiment; however, it’s loaded down with sap and comes off as cheesy.

Grade card: Gov’t Mule - “Dreams & Songs” - C-

Read Sound Bites’ review of “Stone Cold Rage” and “Sarah, Surrender” here: https://krispyweiss.tumblr.com/post/159525719398/song-reviews-govt-mule-stone-cold-rage-and

5/6/17

[krispyweiss]

Jorgen Carlsson Leaves Gov’t Mule on Eve of Summer Tour; Kevin Scott is In

- “We thank (him) for all his incredible work,” band says of departing bassist

After 15 years, Gov’t Mule bassist Jorgen Carlsson is out of the band.

Kevin Scott, who filled in for Carlsson in 2022 when the bassist had COVID-19, will play with the group on its summer tour, beginning June 9 in Oregon.

Gov’t Mule announced the change in the third paragraph of a three-paragraph statement reminding fans about the tour and its new album, out June 16.

“Before we take the stage, we do want to let you know that our friend Kevin Scott will be joining us on bass,” the band said. “We thank Jorgen Carlsson for all his incredible work, including on Peace … Like a River and wish him the best.”

No reason was given and it’s unclear if Scott is officially Mule’s fourth bassist or a substitute. Either way, it’s an “honor - I have been a huge fan since I was in my early 20s,” Scott told Live for Live Music.

“I’m very excited for the future - to develop my own take on the catalog (and) also taking huge inspiration from (Allen) Woody, Andy (Hess) and Jorgen’s amazing bass work over the years.”

6/8/23

[krispyweiss]

Album Review: Gov’t Mule - Heavy Load Blues

Only some of the songs are old. But even the new originals sound that way as Gov’t Mule recorded Heavy Load Blues live in studio through vintage amplifiers and bullet mics to analog tape, giving the album sonic patina that screams early 20th century.

The best way to glean the originals from the covers - besides knowing the classics - is the derivative nature and hackneyed lyrics (“If Heartaches Were Nickels”) of Warren Haynes’ songwriting. “Hole in My Soul,” for example, cops a riff from “The Pink Panther Theme” and “Love is a Mean Old World” is “Dixie Chicken” slathered in grimy goo. A couple of acoustic numbers, including the solo “Heavy Load,” remind listeners who drives this Mule.

But Haynes and co-conspirators Danny Louis (keys/guitar), Matt Abts (drums) and bassist Jorgen Carlsson succeed in their mission to craft an album “sonically … different from a normal Gov’t Mule record,” by making gritty covers of Tom Waits “Make it Rain,” the Animals’ “(Brother Bill) Last Clean Shirt” and setting Howlin’ Wolf’s “I Asked Her for Water, She Gave Me Gasoline,” to a slow-moving arrangement of “Crosstown Traffic.”

The hybrid nature of the LP reaches its logical conclusion when Mule shoehorns a no-holds-barred jam titled “Hold it Back” inside Junior Wells’ “Snatch it Back and Hold It.”

Hard-core fans might want their old Mule back. Casual fans are just as likely to really dig Heavy Load Blues, which is not at all “a normal Gov’t Mule record.”

Grade card: Gov’t Mule - Heavy Load Blues - B

11/22/21

[jester2297]

Tonton "Immediately Sleep In 3 minutes with heavy rain and thunder in the tent alone at night | dark screen" di YouTube