PRESS
Thanks for the EP… the real, raw, authentic and not derivative sound fits right into the second hour of B&B along with guitarist Tommy Castro’s soon to be released album. With Steve, Jesse, and Zeek adding their parts EYE is an EP that should get a lot of attention from blues fans in lots of place. Congrats…
“a level of musicianship that frankly I have never heard even from the biggest bands in the world”
“Their style of “Gritty Roots Rock” is a marvel to listen to, played with such precision and power – this band went into overdrive from the 1st song and almost dared the crowd to hang on for two amazing sets. The entire band is on another level of musical skill, it’s frightening how good they are individually and as a collective within a band. Murray’s use of a “Cigar Box” guitar totally blew me away”
Murray Kinsley certainly knows what it’s like to have the blues. He flew into Cologne/Bonn this very morning to discover his guitar and clothes were both somewhere back at London Heathrow. Typically for a bluesman, it was all down to whiskey of course as my INTERVIEW reveals (and maybe some ‘bad’ woman at luggage control was also to blame?) They ‘done him wrong’ in London for sure. Possibly worst of all was that his CD box was also somewhere far away – and as most touring musicians will know, these days, that’s their main moneymaker along with the ticket sales. Yes, indeed, people of Bonn – Kleines Theater in Bad Godesberg is tonight a place for the Blues – and for the first time as far as I know inside and not under the Cedar Trees. Maybe there’s a song in there somewhere for the next CD? Join me for an evening with Murray Kinsley’s Wicked Grin
Normally your best bet for the blues in Bonn would be the Harmonie. Kleines Theater in Bad Godesberg is generally, with the exception of the ‘Musik unter der Zeder’ outdoor season, a place for theatre and cabaret. In the end it was circumstance, in the form of the award winning Canadian band suddenly having a space to fill between dates in the UK and a late arranged slot on the prestigious Eutin Baltic Blues Festival stage, together with Bonn sound engineer Kirsten Gorham knowing the band, that brought them to Bad Godesberg.
True to my interview with Murray, the set was largely original material. There were only a few covers – Carl Perkins’ ‘Matchbox’ proving to be a great toe-tapper and Freddie King’s ‘Someday, After a While’ being a great showcase for Murray’s excellent guitar-playing skills. My favourite cover being his take of ‘Midnight in Memphis’ a song made famous by Bette Midler’s frenetic version in ‘The Rose’ but I much prefer the more laid-back approach offered by Wicked Grin tonight.
There is no need as it becomes clear for a lot of cover-songs. Murray Kinsley knows how to get at the emotion of an incident and set it to lyrics and song. His take on both the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 ‘Heaven’ was a moving moment in the evening’s music. ‘Trouble Coming’, inspired by shootings in Florida was another such emotional song that had me thinking Johnny Cash would have loved to have tackled – it had that God-fearing gospel vibe that Cash handled with such ease and power, towards the end of his career particularly.
It wasn’t all sad melodrama by any means though. Kinsley communicates well with his audience , laughing off the Heathrow problems and keeping the atmosphere light and positive. ‘High Stepping Mama’ inspired by his Mother in Law, was proof he can laugh as well as cry with his compositions for example, and then there was the cigar box guitar… It might only have three strings, but it has plenty of parts that have to be put back together after traveling and a tuning peg that works in reverse to all the other pegs. You start to wonder if all the effort is worthwhile – until you hear it. The half-sung/half-spoken ‘Snake Farm’ really is a perfect vehicle for Cigar-box playing.
By evening’s end there was loud applause from the small but enthusiastic audience, and repeated calls for encores that could have gone into the the midnight hours. It was that sort of magical evening. One of those where you wish for the band’s sake that more people had been there, but are secretly glad that you caught something special that they missed.
Bonn Harmonie, put Wicked Grin on your future concert concert list PLEASE! Your regular blues/rock crowd will love them. Kleines Theater, feel free to offer a platform to Folk and Blues music in future. Finally – Everyone, take a leaf out of my book and wherever you go keep a look-out for posters and flyers advertising great music in unusual places whenever you are out and about.
This band is based in Ottawa when they are not touring and they are seldom there. They’ve won a New Artist MBA and bassist Leigh-Anne Stanton won that MBA a couple of years ago. Murray Kinsley is the lead vocalist/guitarist/songwriter, Rod Williams plays harp and Bruce Saunders on drums & percussion. The hard-rocking blues quartet added Jesse O’Brien on keys plus Darcy Heppner & Sonny Del Rio on saxes for this outing as well. With renowned producer Nick Blagona on board, this is a major leap forward from three already good albums. Things get under way with the defiant, pounding rocker “This Old Dawg (knows the blues)” (with Tom Bona guesting on drums). They were working in Florida when the Parkland school shooting occurred, the slide-driven “Trouble Coming” was the result and it’s worth the price of the album alone with its perceptive lyric and powerful performance. ”So Long, Too Soon” is a well-written slow blues dedicated to those who’ve passed, principally Ron Casat, the late keyboard ace. The eye-catching title song was found on a road sign they saw while touring in Alabama & they found the story behind it – all history should sound this good. There are more rockers, a jazzy “Dance the Blues” with Williams on chromatic and some lovely a capella singing as part of “Take Me Down (women & whiskey gonna make me pay)”. The program concludes with an impassioned “Freedom”, written by Colin James and Tom Wilson, originally on Colin’s Bad Habits. Kinsley turns in a remarkable vocal performance as a man wrongly convicted. Their web site is http://www.wickedgrin.ca and it shows they are on a US tour with a stop at the Sportsmens Tavern in Buffalo on Nov 10. Catching an Ottawa band in Buffalo might seem unusual but they are worth it – they’re an excellent live band too.
Ottawa-based guitarist Murray Kinsley and his band Wicked Grin have been steadily building up a fan base worldwide and right here at home with a brand of musicianship that stays clear of the hang-dog clichés that often take blues music and its noble power and renders it toothless. Stormy Water finds Kinsley and his cohorts exploring topics like domestic abuse and the inevitability that gives mortality its power with a clear eye and an unsentimental approach. Factor into that the man’s obvious dexterity on the six-string and the unmistakable bite in his seen-it-all vocals laid out clean and neat with a band matching him step for step and the end result is an album totally justified in taking its rightful place in this year’s best-of lists.