Guitarist and vocalist Larry McCray takes the ‘big production’ route for “Heartbreak City.” Just as Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia enlisted the Grammy-nominated producing duo of Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith for their Blues Music Award-winning Blood Brothers, McCray not only follows suit but adds horns and background vocalists along with star-studded guests. As if the guitars of Bonamassa and Smith weren’t enough to fortify his own, he also turns to long-time collaborator Kirk Fletcher on three tracks. To his credit, this is all new material, with McCray, Josh Smith, and others contributing to the writing.
You may have already heard a couple of singles. “Bye Bye Blues,” has the full arsenal is in place:” the two background vocalists, the four-piece horn section, and a tasty, economical guitar solo from McCray in a tune that equally straddles blues and soul in an uplifting way, typified by the lyric, “When I said hello to you, I said goodbye to the blues.” On its heels is another single, “Bright Side,” written by Josh Smith, Michael ‘Harvey’ Price, and Steve Shepherd. As you may well detect from McCray’s deep vocals, the tune was originally penned for the late, great Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland, but sat unreleased for decades until producer Josh Smith thankfully made a great choice in bringing it to McCray. The hand-clapped groove, the call-and-response choruses, and a conventional blues progression, together with McCray’s incisive guitar, evoke the classic blues of decades past. This song, unfortunately, reminds us that we don’t have many blues singers of McCray’s ilk left. It just flows from him genuinely and naturally.
McCray performs with a core band featuring the acclaimed Reese Wynans on keyboards, Calvin Turner on bass, and Lemar Carter on drums, alongside Jade Macrae and Dannielle De Andrea as background vocalists. The opener, “Try To Be a Good Man,” is a funked-up blues rocker featuring those ever-present gospel-inflected vocalists, blaring horns, Wynans’ swirling B3, and searing guitar work. McCray unleashes the typical narrative of working hard to earn money, while pleading for acceptance, knowing he’s far from perfect but trying nonetheless. The title track boasts the same team of writers as “Bright Side,” rendered as a mid-tempo stomper, replete with the full arsenal as McCray bemoans the pain of breakup, “headed to Heartbreak City.” “Everything Falls On Me” has a snappy, syncopated groove, punctuated by B3 and explosive guitar. Ironically, the pulse of the song reminds me of Allen Toussaint’s optimistic, “Yes, We Can, Can,” but the lyrical sentiment couldn’t be any more different.
We get the requisite slow blues from the Josh Smith writing contingent in “I Know What I’ve Done,” McCray’s vocals framed best here of any track, with Bonamassa launching a spiraling, go-for-the-jugular solo. The shuffling burner “Keep On Loving My Baby” features the dueling, high-octane guitars of Fletcher and Josh Smith with Wynans on the barrelhouse piano. “Hangman,” written with Walmsley and Scott Baker, may well be the most interesting track lyrically, as McCray contemplates why the higher power would take away his son so soon, later taking on racial profiling as the protagonist pleads for freedom in an unjust arrest. “Stop Your Crying” has McCray pleading with his forsaken lover to return home, accompanied by simple yet effective piano from Wynans and a burning guitar, which sizzles on the stomping closer, “Crazy World,” which rails against climate change, among other issues.
McCray has never sounded better vocally or on guitar. Heartbreak City has all the major ingredients for a powerful blues album and then some, and thankfully, mostly remains shy of overproduction.
