Recorded in Vancouver, British Columbia, under the challenging circumstances of a deadly pandemic, Open Road mixes blues and bluesy originals and covers. It is the third in a trilogy (the previous two reviewed by me in this space) showcasing what Colin James, a prominent guitarist and vocalist on Canada's roots scene, has gleaned from the genre. The 13 cuts showcase the influences of other genres, most obviously guitar rock, but this doesn't feel overwhelming a blues-rock outing, for which we may be grateful. James and his band exercise control over their material's arrangements and keep the focus on feeling, taste and intelligence.

Though I know some of the covers, the only one I recognized on first hearing was Bob Dylan's "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" (initially known by the less annoying, more appealing title "Phantom Engineer"), done in a punchier fashion than Dylan delivered it. (That's not a complaint, by the way. Dylan's arrangement is perfectly fine for what it is.) There's another Dylan song, "Down on the Bottom," which I did not recognize at all. Either I'd heard it and forgotten it, or it is genuinely new to me. In either case I doubt Dylan could do a better job of it.

The opener, "As the Crow Flies," is from the late, lamented Tony Joe White, among the most underrated roots singer-songwriters of his and our time. Approximately the first half is driven by James' muscular acoustic before the electric guitar that dominates the rest of the album takes over. His original "Raging River," written with Colin Linden, stands out as something like a folk song, at least as one might sound after passing through James' rich revisionist impulses. The title number, a Craig Northey-Colin James original, is my personal favorite of the 13 numbers here presented. Other cuts, thoroughly reimagined from their first visions (especially John Lee Hooker's "Bad Boy" and Otis Rush's "It Takes Time"), follow.

One is continually reminded that while many have tried this sort of thing, few possess James' particular capacity to make it sound so uniquely vivid. He remarks in something I read that after three decades' working in his native country, he was engaged in a successful tour of the United States and at last getting a toehold south of the border when COVID hit and shut everything down. One hopes this is not the end of an American presence for an artist of James' talent. This exemplary recording can only push that ambition forward.

Still, even he can't make the sappy closer, Booker T. Jones and Eddie Floyd's "I Love You More Than Words Can Say," into something you want to hear more than once. For this groaner to work, it would need the overwhelming vocal of a deep-soul singer able to sweep listeners away on a tidal wave of sheer bombast. While ordinarily a pleasure to the ear, James' voice is not that sort of force of nature.

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