MattA75's Full Review: Honkin' on Bobo [Limited] by Aerosmith
I listen to Just Push Play now and I realize it just doesn't sound like an Aerosmith record, it certainly doesn't sound anything at all like our first album-Joe Perry, in a recent press interview
For well over a decade now, members of Aerosmith have talked about making a blues album, where they would cover some of the same songs they started out playing over 30 years ago, and others that inspired Aerosmith to be, well, Aerosmith.
But for all the "wanting," longtime fans of the band were getting stuck with a top 40 version of one of their favorite bands. Instead of hearing hard bluesy rock, we heard Jaded. Cryin. I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing, written by the scourge who wrote the Titanic song, Diane Warren. According to Steven Tyler, they had to write those songs, for the record company. So thanks to Mr. Tyler, we heard Girls of freaking Summer. Hell, the band seems embarrassed by that track now (and might I add, well they should).
But now, my friends, now all of our waiting is being repaid in spades. All those times we pined for an Aerosmith album that SOUNDED like the Aerosmith we loved, all those times we wanted Joe Perry and Brad Whitford to kick Steven Tyler in the nuts and tell him to get on the harmonica and sing with some f*cking fire in his belly, all those times we heard Just Push Play and wondered "what the f*ck," all those times has now been repaid. The band has made their blues album, and folks, the Aerosmith I once knew and loved has come back.
For Bobo, the band recorded 11 blues classics along with a single new original song (The Grind, a solid if unspectacular bluesy ballad). Rather than take the safe route and do straight covers, the band have turned the songs inside out, giving them their own spin in classic 1970s Aerosmith style. Some of the original artists might not comes as much of a surprise: Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac (i.e. the best version of Fleetwood mac), Bo Diddley, and Sonny Boy Williamson, while others might. For example, the band pulled a Joss Stone and re-gendered Never Loved a Girl, a song that might be best known in it's Aretha Franklin version (I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)).
The first single, Baby Please Don't Go (Big Joe Williams), is a roaring blues rocker that finds the band sounding as tight as they have in years. It's the type of straight ahead balls to the wall rock song that has been all but missing from Aerosmith albums in recent years (a couple of Nine Lives tracks aside).
This is juxtaposed with some slow burning blues renditions. Tracy Bonham guests on Back Back Train (traditional, best known by Fred McDowell), trading off lines with Perry, who's always been somewhat of an under-rated vocalist when the song really fits him as this one does. And Tyler absolutely owns the old Sonny Boy Williamson number Eyesight to the Blind, not just for his voice, which sounds amazing throughout this record, but for his harp playing as well, something that has definitely become left in the dark way too often since the band reformed almost 20 years ago.
The opening Road Runner (Bo Diddley) is an joyous guitar romp for both Perry and Whitford, and it immediately engages the listener as a preview of what's to come. Shame, Shame, Shame (Smiley Lewis) features an earth shattering wail from Tyler and some more nice guitar work from Whitford in particular.
Not to be lost in the shuffle is the job bassist Tom Hamilton and drummer Joey Kramer do on this record. Both are in fine form throughout and really help keep some of these songs from becoming a bit too ragged.
I think what's most amazing about Honkin on Bobo is how well these songs come across. The album doesn't sound dated at all, and the only song I go back and forth on whether I enjoy it or not is the aforementioned single original song, The Grind (which was writte/recorded during the same sessions as Girls of Summer). There are parts I like, and parts I'm not too hot on. I'm gonna need a lot more listens with that one.
Perry takes the lead vocal turn one more time for the Fleetwood Mac song Stop Messin Around. He's done the song live for years, but still manages to inject a boatload of energy into the song. And the closing Jesus is on the Mainline (traditional, lyrics by Fred McDowell) features Bonham again, as well as Hamilton and Kramer and Tyler's daughter Chelsea in the chorus. It is a fitting end to an album that sounds fresh and exciting for just about every second. It never sounds stale or dated, something that cannot be an easy feat to pull off with songs that are decades old.
I don't know where Aerosmith will go after this album. If it's a success, we might see them pull a Rod Stewart and go for Honkin on Bobo 2. If it's nothing more than a decent seller, the band might go back to trying to crack the top 40 and keep Columbia Records happy. But here's hoping the band brings the upbeat attitude and energy of this record to whatever other albums are forthcoming in their career. And regardless of what happens, let's hope there's a little bit more of Bobo in them.
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