Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Paul GILBERT: "Stone Pushing Uphill Man"

Rating: RR
Label: Mascot 2013
Review by: Urban "Wally" Wallstrom

Guitarist Paul Gilbert of Racer X and Mr Big fame (they have a new album coming out next month) and his latest release, the cover album, "Stone Pushing Uphill Man". Reading the track list, you'll quickly notice familiar songs such as Loverboy's "Working For The Weekend", Aerosmith's "Back In The Saddle", James Brown's "I Got The Feeling", "Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", The Beatles "Why Don't We Do It In The Road", Eric Carmen's "My Girl" and "K.D. Lang's "Wash me Clean".

That's a very eclectic and varied bunch of tracks for sure and completely unnecessarily in my humble opinion. Why? Because it's all instrumental and most of these tracks are simply not working (out) without lead vocals. Gilbert does his best to mimic the vocal lines with his singing guitar and I guess it's the nice idea on paper. Truth be told. Merely a couple of tunes such as 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' and 'Why Don't We Do It In The Road' are truly winners in my book.

There are also two new originals in "Shock Absorber" and the old time R&B/blues of the title track (think 1930's meets 1960's). The latter with vocals actually and not too shabby at all. Final Verdict: Pretty pointless?

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