Chicken and Egg - The Daniel Smith Blues Band

Review published in Blues In Britain.

A very enjoyable collection of tracks covering all of the moods and tempos that you'll find when you see this excellent band on the road.

This is the latest 12 tracker from Daniel, his third CD of Barrelhouse, Boogie Woogie, Chicago and Downhome Blues. Once again he has written and arranged the majority of the tracks.

Daniel's superb piano playing continues apace whether pounding away on the Boogie Woogie tracks or expertly filling in while the other band members take a solo.

There is some great new material here that I haven't heard at the live gigs.

The band are Daniel Smith - piano and vocals, Alan Glen - guitar and harmonica, Jim Mercer - bass and vocals and Dino Coccia - drums. This is the line-up that you can see on the road, but for this album they're augmented by Roger Cotton - Hammond organ and Dave Briggs - guitar and vocals.

Each member of the band gets a good opportunity to display their varied talents.

The album starts off with a couple of instrumentals and gets the toe-tapping from the off. Tracks 1 & 2 Bossin' the Blues and Dean's Boogie, a kicking rock-blues and a barrelhouse stomp respectively.

There are a couple of "story" numbers "Friday Night", where Dave Briggs handles the vocals and adds his distinctive guitar sound, and the live performance favourite "Hey John", which has some delicious guitar stabs from Alan Glen.

The title track is a nice easy-going instrumental with a slight Caribbean feel to the beat. A great piano solo is followed up
with that wonderful Gibson 335 guitar sound from Alan Glen.

Eddie Boyd's "Too Bad" gets a good working over with Jim Mercer handling the vocals.

Another live concert favourite makes an appearance on this album as track 7. Daniel recorded it previously for the eponymous Sonny Black & The Dukes CD. Now "Boogie Woogie on Swanee River" is back with a new arrangement. You won't be able to stop your feet tapping along with this one, Dino's delicate drumming will keep you in time.

Alan Glen gets to perform one of his own compositions called "Away from Here". Roger Cottons' Hammond blends in nicely with Daniel's piano.

No rum deal with track 9 - Captain Morgan - a downhome instrumental blues shuffle, giving plenty of opportunity for everyone to shine, including Alan Glen's tasty harmonica solo.

Dave Briggs' powerful vocals feature on "Take A Gamble on Me" and "Voodoo King" and we go out the way we came in with a resoundingly boisterous instrumental track called "Jungle Juice".

Once again, highly impressive stuff from one of the UK'S most talented pianists and blues outfits.

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- BLUES REVIEW MAGAZINE, USA

"For small-combo jump blues, look no further than the Daniel Smith Blues Band, whose Chicken and Egg (Pinetops 44) is divided between
instrumentals and vocal numbers.
Hear rollicking boogie-woogies ("Dean's Boogie", "Swanee River"),jazzy tracks (the title song is cut from the same cloth as "The In Crowd"),and
blues (Eddie Boyd's "Too Bad", "Friday Night", "Take A Gamble On Me"). "Hey John", a sad note to a suicide ("Why did you do what you did that
day?"), is full of tension, sung over upbeat music broken only by a couple of stormy guitar solos. "Voodoo King" is spare, haunting, yet swinging. On the hot "Captain Morgan", Dino Coccia hits a snappy double shuffle, Smith's piano sparkles, and Alan Glen turns in throaty guitar and meltdown harp."