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Andy J. Forest: Letter from Hell |
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New Orleans
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Thursday, 09 February 2006 09:27 |
Andy J. Forest
Letter from Hell
Appaloosa Records AP 145-2
By John Sinclair
The enterprising New Orleans-based harmonica man Andy J. Forest has produced a fine series of intriguing albums for the Italian Appaloosa label over the past several years, showcasing his original compositions, lusty singing and virtuoso harp playing in a variety of musical settings.
Andy's new Appaloosa release, Letter from Hell, features an excellent band of Crescent City players--with Marc Adams on keyboards, Jim Markway on bass, Johnny Vidacovich on drums and guitarist Everette Eglin--plus a plethora of special guests in another full program of Forest originals.
But this time there's an extra added attraction: Letter from Hell is billed as the "soundtrack" to Forest's novel of the same name, "the story of five unfortunate musicians [possessed of] a cruel and twisted past with sins ranging from murder to prostitution. They are plunged into an afterlife nightmare when they are killed in an explosion and are sent directly to the Devil's blues club located in a suburb of the second ring of Hell."
Forest has been writing songs almost as long as he's been playing harmonica, but he's taken up fiction only in the past couple of years--initially in response to an invitation to enter a short-story contest. His early stories met with positive response, and he soon embarked on the composition of his first novel, Letter from Hell. The book attracted the attention of Edizioni Pendragon, an Italian publisher, and an American edition was issued this spring to coincide with the U.S. release of the Appaloosa CD.
Irrespective of the merits of Forest's novel--which this reviewer has not yet read--the blues harpist's literary bent is readily apparent in his musical compositions, which range from whimsical little ditties like "I Love You Worse" to Forest's heartfelt memoir of the day Muddy Waters died, "Ode to Muddy." He's philosophical in "Deja Blues" and "Lies Have Long Legs" (both featuring the guitar of Mason Ruffner), roadweary on "Still Hummin'," funny and festive on "Mardi Gras Baby."
"Vacances d'Enfer" is rendered en francais to the accompaniment of Bruce Daigrepont's accordian and Forest's frattoir. "Tongue in Groove" is a hot harmonica instrumental, and organist Davell Crawford and vocalist Jackie Tolbert join Andy and the band on a long, soulful number called "If I Can Help Somebody."
The program ends with a rollicking "Mud Bellied Catfish Medley" and a tag, "Audio liner notes for the visually impaired," wherein Forest speaks to his listeners with National Resophonic guitar backing by Marc Stone.
The title track takes the form of an epistle from the nether regions: "Dear Friends," Forest writes, "It's hot down here, can't get ice water and / the very little beer we get is warm and flat. / They say I'm in for eternity, how about that?"
He continues through a hellish catalog of present conditions and concludes: "If I'm bad enough they might make me a devil too. / I'll get a glowing red fork, horns, and a smokin' hair doo / So hurry up and die! / Burnin' the Blues forever, we're gonna have fun. / P.S. And here no one...carries a gun."
On Letter from Hell Andy Forest has extended the reach of the blues a step beyond its customary earthly concerns to send back an imaginary report from the afterlife, and guess what? It's not such a different experience at all: "It's dark, cruel, scary and I keep getting stabbed by a fork / kind of reminds me of a neighborhood where / I used to live in New York."
With his first novel and accompanying "soundtrack" CD, Forest has achieved something distinctly out of the ordinary. We can only hope that his next project takes him to a little better place--maybe all the way to Blues Heaven.
--New Orleans
May 9, 1999
(c) 1999, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
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