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The
Imperial Crowns
Borderline, 1st August 2005
Reviewed by Pete Feenstra
The Imperial Crowns hail from Los Angeles, California,
a fact that vocalist Jimmie Wood was always happy to stress every
third or fourth song. Having witnessed this mesmerising performance
by the larger than life front man - who doubles on harp and guitar
– with his excellent Imperial Crowns, there really is no other
place they could have come from. Quite simply this gig was as good
as it gets, with the Hollywood born Jimmie and his bunch of musically
brilliant compatriots rocking their way through a spell binding
set.
If this is the blues, it wasn’t the blues as we know it. The
Imperial Crowns are certainly working within the blues idiom and
with a line-up that relies heavily on burst of slide guitar and
generous blues harp bursts from Wood, they will always come back
to their blues roots. Wood himself also preaches the blues, but
then he preaches on a range of subjects raging from his own colourful
life to all things carnal and of course extracts from their "Hymn
Book", debut album.
That said, the band’s UK debut show was more closely tied
in with the recently released and aptly titled "Preachin The
Blues", and a take on the blues closer to say Beefheart meets
Iggy Pop than to any distant blues cousin such as Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Perhaps only the fondly remembered Red Devils could come close to
the incredible energy levels of this powerhouse band. Along the
way The Crowns worked up an awesome head of steam with a mix of
Southern Californian funk on the hugely impressive "Lil Death"
and the glorious sleaze filled "King Size Jones". Then
there was also an occasional, almost poppy melodic outing such as
"Simply Just A Dream" and of course a dollop of firebrand
blues, as on the slide led "Preachin The Blues"
In Jimmie Wood the band have one of the most charismatic performers
to hit these shores in years. He attacks the crowd from the opening
number, and your eyes never leave his every moment. At the intro
of a number he’d be extravagantly swaying a mike stand, while
the next minute he would be crouched down teasing out a big tone
from his harp. Half way through the set he dispensed with his shirt
to reveal a huge Crown tattoo, and once he made the connection with
the crowd there was never a moment’s let up. Such was the
magnitude of his performance that you almost forgot the magnificent
slide guitar playing of JJ Holiday and a cutting edge rhythm section
that pushed every musical moment to its relentless conclusion.
And finally of course there are the songs. Unlike a hundred SoCal
bar bands, The Imperial Crowns have a truck load of original songs
full of colourful narratives, all brought to life by the original
Hollywood kid Jimmie Wood. For make no mistake as Jimmy continually
told his flock, " We are The Imperial Crowns and we’re
pimping the blues." And on the evidence of this UK debut show
they look set to convert many an unsuspecting music fan to their
wonderful low down ways
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