John “Scootch” Cugno - The Road Leads Home

Self Release

14 tracks. 50 mins 16 secs

John “Scootch” Cugno - Compilation Blues

Self Release

16 Tracks. 59 mins 26 seconds

www.scootch.net

Every now and again, the mail-deliverer, drops a CD (or two) through my letter box that on first hearing, I know I will go back to time and time again. These – of course – are two that fall into that category.

Candidly, I had never heard of Scootch or his music ‘till I stuck the first CD in the player but I am delighted with what I heard. Mr Cugno delivers a wonderful mix of riff driven hard edged blues, music that is almost Western Swing (ie without a fiddle or a steel guitar) which does swing (with a vengeance), acoustic slide stuff, sax driven jump blues and much more. In short, a wonderful mix of expertly delivered music, with enough contemporary blues to please the dedicated fan.

Scootch is an accomplished drummer, guitarist and singer songwriter and he played for many years in Boston, Chicago, New Orleans, Denver and Nashville clubs. He now lives in the Boise, Idaho area, although, that said he gets gigs all over the place.

So to some details of the music: By and large, there is not much overlap between the two CDs and where there is, it is possible that the songs have been remixed as there are differences in the length of them (sometimes by as much as 10 second). There is on both CDs a delightful folky paean to John’s New England roots in (surprise) a song called New England; a workout with harp ace John Nemeth on Blues Bouquet, a nice riff driven piece called ‘Old Dog’, (some days you feel like an old dog –ain’t that the truth), excellent harp and guitar fills (the former from Mr Jim Brauneis) and Texas, song writer Shifty Henry’s Let Me Go Home Whiskey. My fave is one that is on the Compilation CD. Called Potholes, it is a nice jump blues complaining about road potholes in Idaho and comes with an unidentified horn section that really drives it along. Super stuff.

I’d love to see Mr Cugno live, and his music deserves as wide an audience as possible. Recommended.