Dave Weld & the Imperial Flames Nighwalk (CD)

(Delmark) 12 tracks

DAVE WELD MEANS BUSINESS

Good luck finding another musician who has been so determined to follow the verities of Chicago blues and so earnest about giving his heart and soul to the music he's played as a guitarist on countless thousands of gigs since the 1970s. "I learned my trade from the masters," Weld says. In his formative years, the native Chicagoan gave a good accounting of himself in rough-and-tumble South and West Side clubs while in the fast company of Otis Rush, Hubert Sumlin, Detroit Junior, Eddie Shaw, Houserockers Ted Harvey and Brewer Phillips and, among others, J. B. Hutto. Slide guitar hellraiser Hutto was Weld's primary mentor. "J. B. had more faith in me than I had in myself. He gave me a sense of worth because he entrusted second guitar duties to me for all his practice sessions. He told me, 'Don't let anybody tell you that you can't make it.' Then he said, 'Now you lead.'

I had to because he was my idol, and he knew things I would not find out until 20 or 30 years later about music, about bandleading, about practice and songwriting, about other bluesmen, about women, about life." Confidence soaring, Weld connected with Hutto-inspired guitarist Ed Williams and bassist James Young —both nephews of Hutto—to form Little Ed and the Blues Imperials at the end of the 1970s. Weld continued playing with this acclaimed group till he started up his own band, the Imperial Flames, in 1988. They've been on a roll ever since with countless club and festival appearances in Chicago and around the country and overseas. Weld and his band have made two well-received Delmark albums, Burnin' Love (2010) and Slip Into a Dream (2015). Now there's a third. Nightwalk, provides further proof of Weld's rare ability to bring his own distinctive style and innovative interpretations into the blues while upholding the great tradition that is the music's quintessence. On display too is the guitarist's ongoing creative alliance with band singer Monica Myhre and other simpatico collaborators. "We had to move forward in the blues world in our writing and playing," he says. "This required, even more, being true to ourselves. It was actually a conscious move to go back and find that original inspiration and creative energy we first had when we started in music. It was the same effort, the same energy, the same desperation of commitment that tells you, either this works or I am a complete failure."

Weld needn't have worried. All turned out well. After some give and take, he and Myhre realized their ideas for arrangements, lyrics, melody, tempo, timing, rhythm intros, solos. Nashville-based Gram-my-winner Tom Hambridge turned out to be an inspirational producer. "He was always positive and never hesitated in directing us in each track," Weld recalls. "He built confidence in what we were doing." There were also productive partnerships made with Hambridge's engineer Mike Saint-Leon, who "found sonic truths in each song and he was always open to what we wanted," and with editing-and-overdub engineer Brian Leach, who "came up with answers to really tough issues such as timing, delivery and execution."

Moreover, Weld and Myhre kept all the musicians—Imperial Flames drummer-vocalist Jeff Taylor, pianist Harry Yaseen, bassist Kenny Pickens and saxophonist Rogers Randle, Jr, along with guests like globe-trotting saxophonist Sax Gordon, honorable harmonica player Billy Branch and first-call Canadian keyboardist Graham Guest at the very top rung of their capability. The songwriting of Weld and Myhre is outstanding in its attention to emotional states and in its imaginative range. Myhre's passionate vocals stamp "Don't Tell Mama" (about a secret shared by sisters that protected their mother) and "She Was a Woman" (an anthem for strong women) with the redemption of a hard-lived life. Its lyric split between English and Spar ish, "Donde Vas" celebrates a night of dancing to the strains of a mariachi band while "Cry, Cry, cry" finds Myhre convincingly essaying a true tale of a woman who has given the boot to a two-timing man.

Throughout the album, Weld's guitar work captures and communicates excitement—as a slide specialist he's at the apex of his considerable powers. The man's also a battle-tested, strong singer, check out "Don't Ever Change Your Ways" (his inspired thank-you to Hutto for all that sage advice) and to no-nonsense refurbishments of 1953 Hutto tunes "Now She's Gone" and "Loving You" (the latter fused to Bukka White's good ol' "Jelly Roll Blues"). On "Mary Who," Weld's singing and guitar work express the urgency of lyrics about an abused prostitute on the West Side in the 1970s. This emotional blues, a plea to remember the forgotten, weighs on the listener's heart. Timeless in its application of blues rudiments, Nightwalk aspires to be both entertaining and thought-provoking. It succeeds admirably.
-FRANK-JOHN HADLEY DOWNBEAT