Johnny Jones Ray - Mystic Chiefs [CD]

Mystic Chiefs, the third album by Southern California blues shouter Johnny Ray Jones, is a hard-hitting 11-track collection that pays homage to generations of the region's best blues and roots bands including Canned Heat, the James Harman Band, the Blasters, the Red Devils, and the Blue Shadows and introduces a powerhouse new band featuring some of the genre's most skilled and exciting players. Jones brings four decades of experience in SoCal's clubs to the table; along the way he has sung beside such titans as Big Joe Turner, Lee Allen, Sam "Bluzman" Taylor, Phillip Walker, John Fogerty and Coco Montoya; he has shared stages with John Mayall, Leon Russell, Jeff Healy, Janiva Magness, Walter Trout, the Knitters, and the Blasters. Jones' two previous albums for the Moondogg label, Feet Back in the Door (2017) and Way Down South (2021), were storming collections featuring Jones' potent vocal interpretations of blues, soul, R&B, and swamp rock classics. Mystic Chiefs, which features Jones' titular new group, is a crackling set of tough blues numbers originated by such masters as Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf, Slim Harpo, and Joe Hill Louis. Five of the songs are drawn from the live repertoire of the Red Devils, the burnin' '90s Los Angeles blues unit fronted by harmonica ace Lester Butler; Jones sat in with the group during the era when they recorded King King, the ripping live album produced by Rick Rubin at the storied L.A. neighborhood joint and backed Mick Jagger on a legendary unreleased studio album. Mystic Chiefs was produced by Jones and recorded and mixed by Johnny Lee Schell at his Ultratone Studios in Studio City, CA. Schell, who continues as a rhythm guitarist in the Mystic Chiefs, has recorded with Bonnie Raitt (including on her multi-platinum 1989 album Nick of Time, which received the Grammy Award as Album of the Year), Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, B.B. King, Taj Mahal, Etta James, Ronnie Wood, and Joe Cocker. The other players in the new band are a Who's Who of rockin' SoCal blues and roots music: lead guitarist Junior Watson (co-founder of the Mighty Flyers and guitarist for Canned Heat and William Clark); pianist Carl Sonny Leyland (keyboardist for Big Sandy & His Fly-Rite Boys); harp player Tex Nakamura (successor to Lee Oskar in War); bassist John Bazz (founding member of the Blasters); percussionist Stephen Hodges (noted for drumming an percussion work behind Tom Waits, Mavis Staples, and James Harman); and drummer J.R. Lozano (who played with his father, Los Lobos bassist Conrad Lozano, on the East L.A. band's Grammy-Winning album Native Sons). Sung, written, and played by the best, Mystic Chiefs is as close as you can get at home to a night in a blues club where the lights are low and the house is shakin'.