Webb Wilder, More Like Me (Blind Pig, 2009) Webb Wilder is a rock 'n' roll historian. A roots music classicist, he draws on the past, mining the rock songbook and coming up with riffs that have been forgotten for so long they sound new. When he plays a song, you think "Where have I heard that before?" and wonder if it was lost in memory from your childhood ... and then you discover that Wilder wrote it over the past year or so; it's brand new but has a classic feel to it. Yet the fact of it is, his music never sounds old. He approaches his songs with humor, a light-hearted attitude and, most important of all, the communicated idea that whatever this is, it's going to be fun. As he says, his band plays rock and it plays roll. And he plays the music with style, skill and love. More Like Me is his first studio album of new material in five years. (A live album, reviewed on this site, came out not long ago.) Fans will be once more captivated with the collection of bar-band material gathered here. Wilder offers blues and 1950s rock; Larry Williams' classic "She Said Yeah" burns while "Honky-Tonkin' (in Mississippi)" is a country-boogie raveup. If you have not yet discovered Webb Wilder, More Like Me will show you the full range of the man's music as well as his emotions and attitude. For all of his humor, lightheartedness and self-effacing laughing at himself, Wilder just simply loves all forms of roots music and loves to play it. You'll love to listen. |
Rambles.NET review by Michael Scott Cain 16 May 2009 Agree? Disagree? Send us your opinions! |