UK musician Chris BEVINGTON started his project Chris Bevington & Friends in 2011, then as a dream about recording music with some of his various musician friends, which was realized in 2014 with the release of the acclaimed self-titled debut album by this project. “Better Start Cookin” is the second album by Bevington and his friends, and was self-released in 2016.
As with the first album, it is the good, old blues that Bevington has a go at here, and with friends such as Robert Hart, Steve Overland, Rebecca Downes, Pete Frampton, Fluff and Chris Aldridge helping out, a nice blend of original and cover material is explored in a neat and compelling manner over 50 or so minutes of playtime. And while just about everything revolves around blues here, it is a varied and diverse production within this context, not emphasizing any particular movement within the genre from what I can tell.
Personally I’d select opening cut 61 & 49 as perhaps the prime cut here, a dirty, vibrant affair that gives me associations to what I have seen described as delta blues, although in this case my inner visual associations goes towards somewhere deep in the untamed swamps in the US somewhere, and most likely somewhere rather primal looking at that.
Otherwise a fair array of a more or less polished take on the blues appears throughout, with careful organ textures, wandering piano motifs, smooth backing vocals, elegant brass and sax bursts and a liberal amount of sax and guitar combinations of various kinds coming and going, from the soulfilled, melancholic elegance of Change the World to the circulating, uplifting guitar driven title track Better Start Cookin’ as well as the smooth blues rocker Call My Name, this latter cut giving me associations to early ZZ Top given a smooth down makeover.
Old Friend, a cover by an Allman Brothers Band classic, is another track I’d like to highlight on this album. It stands out to me for being a rather more sparsely arranged affair, partially acoustic, driven by acoustic and electric slide guitars combining with controlled, emotional lead vocals. A perfect example of how a song can make a massive impact with a bit more of a less is more approach in execution.
I’m not an expert on the blues in any manner whatsoever, this is one of many genres of music where my knowledge is severely limited. I do think I know a bit about the difference between good and not so good music though, and within that context my subjective opinion is that “Better Start Cookin” is a quality production, a solid album with a couple of moments of blissful blues magic as the icing on the cake. A production that merits an inspection by those who tend to enjoy blues and blues rock for sure.
My rating: 82/100
