Bill Sims - Bill Sims (CD)

All Music Guide

Just like its title, Sims' eponymous PBS / Warner Brothers debut is unpretentious and solid: it's this singer-guitarist's personal overview of the blues. Sims' voice at its most soulful suggests a blues Gil Scott-Heron or Lou Rawls - smooth, deep rather than flashy, and bittersweet. Some of his guitar solos somehow sound like that too. He transforms "Nobody's Fault But Mine" into a back-porch banjo stomp, and tunes by Big Bill Broonzy and Charlie Patton into shifty New Orleans second-line funk. He also breaks down a mournful version of Howlin' Wolf's "Mr. Airplane Man," and brings onboard saxophonist Chico Freeman to intensify the slow-burning RB heat in "Smoky City."

- Chris Slawecki, All Music Guide