Pete Cornelius
GROUNDSWELL
Independent / Only Blues Music
Tasmanian Pete
Cornelius is only in his late 20s, but this is a man who knows and plays the
blues like someone three, four times his age. Releasing his first record at age
13, Cornelius has quietly gone about forging a reputation as not only a stellar
guitar slinger, but also as one not content to merely lay down 12 bars, really
getting into the songwriting and arranging aspect of this oldest of genres.
Groundswell sees Cornelius at the top of his game in that
respect. Bringing in various horns to bulk out the sound, along with lashings
of Hammond organ and piano, it’s an album in which the man explores more of a
swing/blues aspect (opener, ‘Drinking The Blues’), a gospel bent (‘Cold
Water’), a driving, jagged blues shuffle (‘Repo Man’), a freeform N’awlins
groove (‘Talkin’ Bout New Orleans’).
It’s a mixed bag
to be sure, and while it doesn’t pack as much of a punch as his rawer straight blues
recordings, it does sit together well, as mature an old recording from a young
man as you’ll ever find.
3/5
Samuel J. Fell
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