Mick Kolassa I'm Just Getting Started! (CD)

(Endless Blues) 12 tracks

With his 11th album, Mick Kolassa declares, I'm Just Getting Started, and what a start it is. Mick serves up various sub-genres of blues on his foray into free range blues. Working with producer Jeff Jensen, they've assembled an array of seasoned musicians to bring you a selection of ear-opening tunes. Opening the album with the title track, I'm Just Getting Started, Mick declares that he has moves that no one has ever seen. In the second track, Mick turns away from classic blues and brings a soul blues tune called What Can I Do? on which the lead guitar is played by Dexter Allen, who also handles the bass on ten tracks on this album.

Mick then urges listeners to dream Bigger Dreams and not give up on the dreams they have. Mick and the band move into jazz with their cover of Alibis and Lies, a song about modern Beale Street originally by Chainsaw Dupont. Brandon Santini joins Mick on his version of the Taj Mahal classic Leaving Truck - this is the first song Mick and Brandon played together many years ago, and they bring it with a new and funky groove. Brandon also joined Mick to perform the John Hiatt song Real Man. The other cover on this album is a very bluesy/roots gospel version of the Pacific Gas and Electric Rock classic Are You Ready.

Love songs That Kind of Man and Take Me Away are presented with a blend of soul and blues rock, while Trying Not to Let the Darkness In is one of Mick's classic slow minor blues songs. Closing out the new album are Hard Hearted Woman, a track about a woman to be avoided to say the least, and How Much Can I Pay You?, a comical song about a club-goer who goes more than a little overboard with the partying.

All in all, these songs represent an extension of the Free Range Blues that Mick is known for, and he's just getting started!