It’s certainly fair to say Big Head Todd & The Monsters’ third album, Sister Sweetly (released 2/23/93) was a sizable achievement for the Colorado-based band. Not only did it represent a crystallization of its blues-derived rock and roll, but it provided the band with its greatest commercial success. In addition, it stood then and it stands now, thirty years after release, as a template from which the group has judiciously but productively digressed for the duration of its career.
Derivative as Big Head and company may be, they are not overly so and, in fact, rely on admirable sources. Besides the apt instrumental comparisons to the original Mark Knopfler-led Dire Straits quartet, frontman guitarist/chief songwriter Todd Park Mohr has a languorous style of vocal phrasing not unlike Gregg Allman’s at his most seductive: intentionally or not, such phrasing is most prominent and effective on the title song and “Bittersweet.”
Yet, as so amply demonstrated in the opening cut of this approximately forty-eight minutes, “Broken Hearted Savior,” the man’s voice can be as gruff as his fretwork is cutting; the vocal tone is fully in keeping with a 1997 collaboration alongside the iconic John Lee Hooker on Beautiful World. Hear too how bassist Rob Squires and drummer Brian Nevin pick up the pace at the very point the interlocking overdubbed guitar parts mesh; it’s proof positive the trio could blend the spontaneity of stage with the more strict approach of the studio.
Credit Prince collaborator and producer David Z, who helmed recording sessions at the former’s Paisley Park studios, for this insightful yet restrained approach on the label debut for Irving Azoff’s Giant Records. The rhythm workout appropriately titled “Groove Thing,” complete with quasi-rap is placed exactly in the center of the eleven tracks and, as such, highlights the substance of what surrounds it. On “It’s Alright” and “Soul For Every Cowboy,” BHTM’s essential charm lies in how the band insinuates its musicianship rather than relying on flash. To that end, George Marino’s expert mastering reveals the understated nuances.
In keeping with a workmanlike approach to a career in which they’ve flirted with the mainstream, but never permanently penetrated it, Big Head Todd & The Monsters have remained independent in making pragmatic use of their relative fame. Upon request of space shuttle astronauts in 2005, the group wrote and recorded “Blue Sky” (also used by HRC as a campaign song). Plus they’ve also paid rightful homage to their roots by playing live and recording as the ‘Big Head Blues Club:’ in the latter configuration, the group has acquitted itself admirably in the company of such genre icons as B.B. King and Charlie Musselwhite.
In and around the side project, the ensemble expanded to a quartet with the enlistment of Jeremy Lawton. Having engineered and mixed Rocksteady upon his recruitment circa 2004, this multi-instrumentalist and vocalist became a permanent member for the essential concert set Live at the Fillmore and the following studio effort Crimes of Passion.
Lawton’s presence has liberated the other three and in turn, encouraged more of the judicious blend of textures that’s sprinkled throughout the three-decade-old Sister Sweetly. The self-renewing authenticity of BHTM’s sources kept fresh such subsequent albums as Black Butterfly, the body of work in toto thus reaffirming that, while this unit may not innovate, it nevertheless rarely ceases to surprise.
Ending on the appropriately eclectic note of an acoustic tune called “Brother John,” this folk-oriented number, performed solo by the namesake of the band, simultaneously confirms the source of his strengths as well as how indispensable the complementary contributions of his comrades.
