we were introduced to seth james by guitarist bob britt, a good friend of the founder of the company i work for. when originally introducing him to our group, bob said something to the effect of ‘not only is he a great musician, but a great person as well’. in his subsequent interview i was convinced that bob was right. dressed in western gear and a big cowboy hat, he regaled us with his stories of growing up in west texas on a horse ranch, and the life lessons he learned there.

by looking at him, i was expecting that the music would be somewhere in the country vein, maybe even the red dirt country genre that is based in that area. but i really could not have been more wrong. growing up on that ranch, he didn’t have access to radio while on a horse. and so he listened to albums from a very wide swath of influences, from chicago blues, memphis r&b to new orleans funk.

and all those influences are readily apparent throughout the entire album of fourteen tracks. it opens with ‘mamarita’, a big funky song with a new orleans/dr. john style piano up in the mix. next up is ‘solid gold plated fool’, written by delbert mcclinton. if you are a fan of little feat, this will sound right to you. ‘she likes to run’ is a song where it is hard to tell if he is talking about a horse or a woman. ‘raisin’ kane’ is a cover of a j.j cale song that not even he recorded. it was a demo that was given to seth. and lord knows we could use some more j.j.cale in this world.

seth either writes or cowrites most of the songs here, and i think his work continues in the fashion of the great writers from texas. the overall arrangements are catchy and inviting. as mrs. redeyegin said, ‘i can dance to that’. the horn charts are great, and the backup singers provide even more punch.

seth is a long time fan of delbert mcclinton (even touring with him), and the band here is to a large degree borrowed from delbert (including bob britt on rhythm guitar). they sound like they have been playing together for a long time, mostly because they have. i think you will enjoy it.