I have long been an admirer of the passion and innate talent of guitarist Snowy White, especially his solo work. His time in Thin Lizzy is underestimated and overlooked too. When he plays, there is emotion in every note, and just enough notes to convey the desired feeling. The best example of this was when he took the stage at the Nottenden Festival with another guitar genius, Bernie Marsden (so if you can pick up a copy of this b**tleg, I cannot recommend it enough).
Fortunately, his studio output is high quality too, and his latest album, Something On Me, provides over an hour of sheer blues craftsmanship. The opening and title track is somewhat surprising, with the percussion-heavy intro before some superlative acoustic guitar introduces a unique blues song that entrances throughout. The electric guitar phrases encapsulate restrained, bluesy perfection. ‘Get Responsible’ is a lesson on modern life’s consequences wrapped up in a slightly Latin-tinged blues song — as Snowy says, “We got to do something to save our only home, but everybody’s looking at their mobile phone.” However, the lack of a true solo is a minor disappointment when you listen to the guitar phrasing during the verses.
‘Ain’t Gonna Lean On You’ starts with delectable slide before moving into a funky, blues structure and with plenty of slide excursions to keep it more than interesting. ‘Commercial Suicide’ is a superb instrumental with an old western plains feel but with enough variation in guitar and keyboard soloing (and a brilliant bass and drum backline) to make its seven minutes just fly by…beautiful. Although the lyrical content of many of the songs is quite dark, the music is strong enough to carry it all off with aplomb. The one exception, ‘Whiteflames Chill’, is about the band kicking back with glasses of wine over a suitably upbeat funky island sound and a brilliant fuzzed solo. The final song, ‘One More Traveller’ is final in many ways…”because I was fine before I was born” is the closing stanza. However, again the music is more upbeat than the lyrics and equally as honest. The closing acoustic solo moves seamlessly to electric and is worth the entry fee alone.
This is another stunning collection to add to the rest of Snowy’s undervalued and overlooked output. If you like blues guitar played superlatively, then just buy this, listen and learn.
Something On Me was released on 9th October via Snowy White/Soulfood Music
