By Todd Lavoie
BLACK JOE LEWIS & THE HONEYBEARS
Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is!
(Lost Highway)
Well, great gosh-a-goddamn, what a sweet surprise: two weeks ago, I’d never even heard of Austin-based soul-whuppers Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears, and now here I am, once again, swervin’ and stompin’ away to their major-label debut for the millionth time. As far as brassy, blazing tear-’em-up and tear-’em-on-down soulful sonic bad-assery is concerned, this high-octane octet has the genuine know-how: gritty and greasy garage rock meets old-school Wilson Pickett/Otis Redding-style vein-popping r&b, packed into a lean and hungry thirty-minute roar.
With its quick-and-to-the-point playing time and unfussy, straight-to-tape production (courtesy of Spoon’s Jim Eno), Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is! could probably be easily mistaken for a lost treasure from the late Sixties/early Seventies— and that’s exactly the whole idea, judging from Lewis’ obvious adoration for the Pickett/Redding era. Still, with the band frequently playing like their hair’s on fire — charging and crashing and running gleefully into the red — these folks at times remind me of Texan spiritual cousins to The Dirtbombs and The Bellrays, two contemporaries also serving up swaggering minglings of soul and garage sounds. Live, I imagine they must be riveting— we’ll get a chance to catch them in the Bay Area at Slim’s on May 16.
Black Joe Lewis, “Sugarfoot”
A look-see of the band’s MySpace will steer you right to the sources of the disc’s raw-and-ready firepower. The members cite James Brown, Hound Dog Taylor, and Rocket From The Tombs as influences, for example. They all make sense, too: Lewis’ full-throated shout definitely hoots a potent analog to Brown’s get-on-the-good-foot, and his formidable backing band the Honeybears are deserving of all the JB’s comparisons they get.