"Blues this Bad" was recorded live at 742 Studios, Bedford. Engineered by Arthur Anderson and Dan Peters. The copyright to all recordings is owned by Sugarland Slim. © 2001 Sugarland Slim, all rights reserved.  Sugarland Slim are: Jeff Adams: Harmonica Tom Dale: Acoustic Lap, slide, 12 String, Banjo, Electric & Vox Darren Power: Electric Bass Sean Kingsley: Lead vocals, rhythm guitar, drums & tap impro. MP3 is the full album track and is encoded at 128 kbps stereo.  PC users on dial-up should right mouse click on the link and choose "save target as": "Hey Hey" Realaudio Low-Fi | Hi - Fi "Hey Hey" MP3 3 Mb's "See that my Grave's Kept Clean" Realaudio Low-Fi | Hi - Fi

Order Blues this Bad Available from Sugarland Slim's Website.

"This four-piece come from Milton Keynes (but don’t hold that against them). The line-up is Sean Kingsley vcl/gtr/tap (trust me and read on); Jeff Adams hca; Tom Dale gtr; Darren Power bs. This is prewar blues, material comes from Big Bill, Son House, Blind Lemon, Bob J and, er, John Mayall and Jimi Hendrix well OK, mainly pre-war! done in a style akin to that used by the Blues Band Unplugged/ Wireless.

The opening title track features some mean slide and bumping bass, and there’s a short uncredited reprise at the end of the CD. 'Red House' aaargh! but an acoustic version with good slide does actually work well. Big Bill’s 'Hey Hey’ gallops along with the bass popping and some good harp. ‘Preaching Blues has a great guitar and harp intro and is an excellent reworking. Just Tap Jammin’ starts as a solo tap dance piece by Sean with the harp coming in Sonny Terry style and finally banjo and bass dropping in, sounds odd but believe me it really works! 'Eagle Eye' is an obscure Mayall song that appeared on the EP he did with Paul Butterfield back in the 60’s. Here it is played low key and moody with guitar and harp getting it just right. ‘See That My Grave Is Kept Clean' also has an interesting intro going into a very different up tempo treatment which again surprisingly works. Robert J’s 'Four ‘Til Late' has a more conventional take but with a hint of jazz. 'Train Time Blues' is a traditional harp train song but with a bit of tap dancing thrown in. I have seen this band live and was most impressed. They really enjoy their music and that comes out in this CD. They have a good enthusiastic front man, good harp and guitar playing, all underpinned by steady bass work. Also good to see a band that’s willing to try some radical approaches to some of the classic pre-war blues. I really like this CD and it gets a Recommended sticker. Well worth getting along to see the band live too. - Rating: 9" Review from 'Guitarist' magazine - January 2001.

Band: Jeff Adams: harmonica. Torn Dale: acoustic, lap, slide, 12 string, banjo, electric guitars and vocals. Darren Power: electric bass. Sean Kingsley: lead vocals, rhythm guitar, drums and tap improvisation. Highlights: Tap dance steam train impersonation on Just Tap Jammin’ and monster harmonica playing. Presentation: The band assure me this will improve when website problems are sorted. (Ta-Daa! Webmaster) Production: It’s not often that a band recorded live’ in the studio actually sound good live. They’re right in your face with delta slidework, beefy basslines and powerful vocals. Songs: Slim wear their blues pioneer inspirations on their sleeve. Authentic sounding delta blues with a modern edge. Musicianship: Dale, 23, plays with the experience of a bluesman thrice his age. The band have a great sense of tone, feel and rhythm.

ADVICE: Not many bands can pull off old style blues this well. You’ll go far. (Ben Bartlett)

Sugarland Slim - Blues This Bad. RATHER spookily, this album dropped on to my doormat on June 21 - only hours before one of the acknowledged blues greats, John Lee Hooker, died in San Francisco, aged 83. With a name like Sugarland Slim, you'd be forgiven for thinking this earthy, raw album was the work of a contemporary of the great John Lee. You couldn't be more wrong. Sugarland Slim is actually four young blokes from around Bedford way, each of whom, on this self-produced debut album, displays a knowledge, understanding and love of the Mississippi Delta blues of the 1930s and I'm sure that they, like many, many others, would have been saddened by the passing of the best-loved and most-revered of the old Delta bluesmen. While this album contains none of the great man's compositions, it does boast a handful of numbers by such of his contemporaries as Big Bill Broonzy, Robert Johnson, Son House, Muddy Waters and Jimi Hendrix. Okay, maybe Hendrix doesn't quite fit in with the others but Sugarland Slim's working of his "Red House" certainly harks back to Jimi's musical forbears. Leading in with Tom Dale's chiming guitar, the world-weary harmonica of Jeff Adams picks up the melody before Sean Kingsley's gravelly vocal tells us about his baby. It seems she's done a runner, prompting him to seek solace in the arms of her sister (how resourceful!). It's all underpinned by Darren Power's inventive bass and Dale turns in a tasty bottleneck solo - one of several across the album - and the whole thing is fairly unrecognisable from Hendrix' original. Broonzy's "Hey Hey" is taken at a fair old lick and lets Dale slide out another bottleneck break as well as giving him the chance to show us that he 's a pretty nifty banjo-picker on the side. One of the album's highlights is John Mayall's "Eagle Eye" which sees each of the Slim boys showing great restraint as the guitar and mouth organ weave delicate patterns around the voice and bass. Robert Johnson is alleged to have sold his soul to the devil and, on the evidence of this version of his "4 'Til Late", I'd say Old Nick saved at least a small part of it for these fellas. The sprightly work-out lets each of 'em kick their legs a little, Dale in particular, who, once again, picks an unfeasibly useful guitar. The sleeve note states that "these tracks were recorded 'live' in the studio, just as they were 60 or 70 years ago" and that approach has produced a gem of a blues album. Only time will tell if Sugarland Slim goes on to carve the kind of reputation enjoyed for so long by John Lee Hooker but "Blues This Bad" is a firm foundation on which to build. For details of the band. - Fred Hall

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