October 15, 2012 The City Boys Allstars---Their Release "When You Needed Me" Sometimes you look at something and you think you know what's coming. It's often the case with album art. That's what I thought with the City Boys Allstars album I recently got for review. Then all my expectations were blown out of the water. What I thought I was in for, having seen the cover, was a blues rock album, what I got was something completely different. This is a superbly performed, and beautifully varied recording. Drawing on jazz and soul in addition to the expected blues, it's warm and layered sound is reminiscent of top acts like the Crusaders, and really is fully capable of standing alongside them without seeming in any way an inferior piece of work. The arrangements are as much horn driven as guitar led, and thats as much a credit to Mike Merola's tasteful and subtle string work as it is to a horn section as superb as it is. The vocals too are eye poppingly good, dynamic, soaring and heartfelt, they lift an already great record even higher, the emotion delivered in the classic 'God Bless the Child' is tangible, real and deeply moving. When it gets to the real blues numbers things don't slacken off. There is tongue in cheek humor in the lyrics of Last Night (the Bottle Let me Down), and some stunning guitar playing on a combo cover of Freddie King's The Stumble and Hideaway. It goes to demonstrate that these guys are as good a straight blues band as they are a soul/jazz/blues crossover act, old school Chicago at the core with a filigree of New York sophistication on top. You might get the impression that I really like this record. You'd be right. It's definitely hard to criticize, there's nothing that you obviously could, arrangements are crisp and funky, the rhythm section is as tight as you could ever want, vocals and guitar are great and the horns, well with Blue Lou on sax, they're as good as anything I've ever heard. The production is flawless too, nothing is