A promising guitarist whose personal troubles have perhaps kept him from realizing his full potential,
Lurrie Bell
rebounded from an early-'90s nadir with the intense and sometimes bizarre
Mercurial Son
, almost like a
Chicago blues
version of
Skip Spence
's
Oar
. The following
700 Blues
was considerably more polished, but 1998's
Kiss of Sweet Blues
finds a workable middle ground between the two extremes. The songs, mostly by producer/rhythm guitarist
Dave Specter
and bassist
Harlan Terson
with
Bell
contributing only a pair of riff-based instrumentals, aren't as challenging as those on
, but they're entirely credible;
"Blues and Black Coffee"
and
"Hiding in the Spotlight"
have the hard-earned intensity to put themselves over even if they lack the earlier album's knife-edge immediacy and sometimes peculiar phrasing.
's solos are impeccable throughout, and his backing group, also including funky organist
Rob Waters
, is tight and admirably resistant to showboating. ~ Stewart Mason