Recorded live at the Robin Hood R&B Club, Dudley, England on the
26th July and 1st November 1996.
Produced by Nick Graham - Recorded by John Etchells
Review: 07/03/05
Jess Roden & The Humans - Live At The Robin (Mystic MYS CD 183)
Back in the early 70s Jess Roden was one of the best kept
secrets of the British rock scene - a musicians' musician and a
blues/soul singer of high reputation but who never really broke through
and sold a lot of records or made the charts. Back then this type of
rock music was the staple diet for countless pubs and blues clubs, and
it paved the way for pub-rock and later
the new wave rock movements.
Roden eventually retired from the music scene until the
early 90s when he returned and formed The Humans and started to build up
a strong rep for putting on a great gig - again. The Humans include
guitarist Gary Grainger [ex-Rod Stewart band], bassist Nick Graham
[ex-Skid Row], guitarist Bill Burke and drummer Leo Brown.
This live album dates back to 1996 and was recorded at the famous Robin
Hood club outside Birmingham and was the last gig the band ever
performed. The overall sound is classic British-style blues-rock with
some soul added to the mix, and on most of the nine tracks here the band
rock mightily.
Along with several band-penned songs, the Humans burn
the stage up with Willie Dixon's I Live The Life I Live, Buddy Guy's Let
Me Love You Baby, Joe Tex' You'd Better Believe It, and a particularly
corruscating version of Neil Young's Rockin' In The Free World.
For a live album the audience are surprisingly quiet for most of the
time, but the band are on great form and this is a great record of a
working band doing their thing to the max.
If John Mayall, Chicken Shack, Cream, Dr Feelgood mean
anything to you then you will definitely want to hear this album. Two
words - Buy it!
John M Peters
