Blue Blazes
Sugar Blue is best known for his signature harmonica riff--at once bluesy and tuneful--on the Rolling Stones' hit, "Miss You," but he has recorded with everyone from Stan Getz and Bob Dylan to Willie Dixon and Johnny Shines. The diversity of those experiences helps account for the pop melodicism, jazzy harmonics and bluesy note-bendings of Sugar Blue's harmonica playing, but only his individual talent can account for the pure, piercing tone he achieves on the instrument. His latest album, "Blue Blazes," includes his own interpretation of "Miss You" as well as versions of Dixon's "Back Door Man" and other blues standards by James Cotton, Jimmy McCracklin and Jimmy Rogers. The songs may be familiar, but Sugar Blue's harmonica solos are revelatory. Playing with virtually no vibrato, he plays fast, single-note runs punctuated by accenting chords. He feels just as comfortable in the underexploited upper range of the instrument as in the lower. He's a competent singer and leads a solid band, but when he takes off on a stratospheric solo on Sonny Boy Williamson's "Help Me" or his own "Out Till Dawn," Sugar Blue is unlike any other bluesman before him.--Geoffrey Himes