Rattlebag
Paul Reddick and The Sidemen
Independent
2001
16 tracks
Paul Reddick and The Sidemen are somewhat of a phenomenon. Previously little known to the general public, the members of this band had long been musicians' musicians, the ones every artist wants to play as session musicians when recording that new release, the ones that make an artist sound just that much better. Once they came out of the shadows, Paul Reddick and The Sidemen swept the airwaves, along the way being nominated for or winning enough awards to pack the box of an eighteen-wheeler. Not bad for a little Canadian blues band.
On first approaching this release, I wondered what I could say that had not already been said about this popular, widely written about band of master musicians. Then I realized there's something different going on here. Although they have become popular in the Canadian blues mainstream, the music of this band actually lies somewhere outside the mainstream in a world all its own.
The capital-B Blues is an American institution, yet there's something about the blues that feeds the Canadian imagination. In Ontario, blues bands seem to spring up like dandelions. Toronto seems to produce more blues artists than Atlanta and Memphis combined. [Okay, that's including the mediocre and really bad artists as well as the excellent ones in Toronto.] Amongst such a profusion of artists in any genre, it's no easy thing for one artist or band to stand out. Paul Reddick and The Sidemen not only stand out from the crowd but they've carved out a space all their own.
The performances on Rattlebag bring the listener a distinctive sort of blended-blues that, while honouring its American roots, has a purely Canadian sensibility. Not lock-stepped into a narrow genre, this music is countrified, rocking, moody, swampy, grooving, poetic, and emotional. It's music with universal appeal made possible in part by bringing together old time sounds with something more contemporary. While it reaches deep into blues history, this music opens a door to the future of the blues.
In the notes, Paul Reddick writes about being greatly influenced by the early field recordings of old time blues artists, often amateur musicians away from the evolving mainstream of citified blues. This influence shows through in these performances. Somewhere in there, I hear sounds that suggest this artist had also been influenced by the folk and country music of his native Canada. The sounds are there, and you don't have to listen hard to hear them. While it remains blues music, this music is rich with a heritage that includes far more than the blues, and it benefits greatly from that infusion.
I do find the first track a bit puzzling. At first, I thought that I knew what was being attempted. Now I'm not so sure. I do know that it doesn't seem to be working as well as was probably intended. The quirky "P. R. Jubilee" starts off seeming an overlay of two songs, rather like two different tapes being played at the same time, and in its short duration never seems to resolve itself. The style of both songs seems a tip of Reddick's hat to the old field recordings. When I was a teen in Alberta, I got the same effect listening on a car radio to rock and roll broadcast from stations across the continent, the wavering sound of one song often undercut with music from a second station. I've heard similar but more subtle overlays in songs like The Band's "The Weight" or some of the old folk music by groups such as The Carter Family. In those songs, it works. In this song, I just find it overdone and inconsistent with the balance of the release.
With that one small exception, I find the performances on this release to be original and interesting and more than a cut above much of the Canadian blues I hear. This blend of electric rockers with countrified sounds that are less American country-blues than just plain Canadian country music is refreshing in a world where it seems every new blues band just wants to play electrified rock and roll. This release well deserves all the acclaim it has received and more.
You can find out more about acclaimed Canadian bluesman Paul Reddick and The Sidemen at the Paul Reddick and The Sidemen website. Five of the songs on Rattlebag, including the title song are available as full-length mp3 clips here.
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Review written: April 19, 2005
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