Sean Chambers -- "Trouble & Whiskey"

Sean Chambers is a guitar player/singer/songwriter. I have enjoyed his work back to 2009's "Ten Til Midnight." I saw  growth between that promising beginning and his next release, 2011's "Live From The Long Island Roadhouse." It appeared on BB King’s Bluesville XM/Sirius Blues Charts as a “Pick to Click” for 6 weeks in a row, as well as 15 weeks on the RMR Weekly Blues Roots Chart and 11 weeks on the House of Blues Radio Chart. The album was voted “Best Live Blues Album of 2011” by Canada’s Blues Underground Network and ranked as one of the Top 3 Live CD’s in Germany by the magazine Wasser Prawda.  In addition it was nominated for a Jimi Award for “Best Live Blues Album of 2011.” Guitar Player Magazine did a full page feature story on Sean in February, 2012, and the same month Vintage Guitar Magazine ran a two page feature story.

There was another leap forward with his next release, 2013's "The Rock House Sessions." on Blue Heat Records. The album received great reviews and was also nominated for a Blues Blast Music Award in 2014 for “Best Blues Rock Album of the year”.  The album was recorded at Rock House Studios owned by acclaimed keyboardist Kevin McKendree (Delbert McClinton Band) –  hence the album name.

In all those albums, Chambers was digging in a familiar vein--there was a clear connection between his start as guitarist and band leader for Hubert Sumlin in 1998-2003 and the solo albums. Well, with this release Chambers has raised his game yet another leap forward--more fire, more passion, more consistency, just lots of more better stuff! The core band on the album is Sean on lead vocals and lead guitar, Michael Hensley on Hammond B3 & keyboards, Todd Cook on bass and Kris Schnebelen  on drums. Special guests include Jimmy Bennett on guitar on track #8, John Ginty on Hammond B3 on track #4, and Andrei Koribaniks on percussion on tracks #1 and #7. Trouble & Whiskey features 7 new original Sean Chambers compositions, and 3 well chosen covers including “Bullfrog Blues” by Rory Gallagher, ‘Cut Off My Right Arm” by Johnny Copeland and “Be Careful With A Fool” by Riley B. King/Joe Bihari. My favorite songs here are the title track and "Bottle Keeps Staring At Me." The title track recalls the style and fire of Johnny Winter--and "Bottle" is, in my opinion, perhaps the best blues rock song of the year so far. And I must confess a soft spot for anybody who covers "Bullfrog Blues" well. Sean's version is, dare I say it, touching on Rory Gallagher territory. Top Ten album of the year candidate.

"Guitarist Chambers achieves the distinctly American blues/soul/country/rock sound that the Stones used to aspire to long ago." - Jerry Shriver, USA TODAY

You can buy this cd at http://www.seanchambers.com/ or at i-tunes.com/