Live at the Rynborn
Usually, there's nothing quite so boring as a really flashy guitar solo. To hear some kid--who spent all his time in his bedroom practicing scales when he should have been out meeting girls--race across the fretboard can make anyone's eyes glaze over. A few guitarists, however, can play at top speeds and still maintain a groove and still find something to say about life's frustrations. Danny Gatton was one such guitarist. Bobby Radcliff is another. And Radcliff's 1997 album,Live at the Rynborn, showcases one jaw-dropping solo after another. Radcliff is usually pigeonholed as a blues artist, but he owes just as much to the '60s soul and funk of James Brown and P-Funk as he does to the Chicago blues of Magic Sam and Buddy Guy. Because he plays with a trio, Radcliff has to handle both the lead and rhythm duties himself, and he marries the slashing lead lines of Guy with the choppy syncopation of Brown's Jimmy Nolen.The set features Radcliff's regular road trio ripping through one original and nine standards. The leader invents so many variations on Bill Doggett's "Honky Tonk" and a Kool and the Gang medley that the original themes are barely recognizable amid the guitarist's colliding chords and gear-shifting rhythms. D.C. DJ Steve Hoffman wrote the liner notes.--Geoffrey Himes