Reviews

David Gogo
Different Views
Cordova Bay

By Donald Teplyske - Red Deer Advocate
Published: September 04, 2009 8:24 AM

Nanaimo-based David Gogo is a veteran on the Canadian blues circuit and he returns this fall with his 10th album of electric guitar-oriented shuffles and R&B boogie dance tunes.

The originals are power blues-rockers of the finest sort, with changes of tempo that encourage air-guitar miming from listeners and vocal arrangements that recall Tom Wilson (Where the Devil Won’t Go) and Carlos Santana (Lies). Different Views is soaring voices, power chords and waves of organ, tightly arranged for maximum impact.

A pair of crack covers — Don’t Bring Me Down, owing as much to David Johansen as it does Eric Burden, and John Stewart’s Gold — serve as recognizable anchors. The 1979 hit receives a vital update, with Gogo’s whammy bar altering the familiar melody and Carolyn Mark holding her own in Stevie Nicks’ harmony spot.

Different Views is a blues album that holds up to repeated listens.

© 2009 Red Deer Advocate