This is Ronnie Earl’s 20th album, which is hard to believe since it doesn’t seem that long ago that he was the young guitar slinger for the powerhouse Roomful of Blues. Earl has been to the mountain and beyond while conquering alcohol, cocaine, and depression through a brilliant but tormented career. The Boston-area resident, who lives a reclusive life these days, is back with arguably his best-ever album.
Recorded at Wellspring Sound in Acton, it’s another all-instrumental effort in which he wrote or co-wrote nine of the 14 tracks. Earl’s passion is immediate on Albert Collins’s “Backstroke,’’ with Earl weaving piercing note bends over the steady rhythms of Hammond B3 organist Dave Limina. He pays tribute to Duane Allman on the poignant “Skyman,’’ but also to Guitar Slim on the urgent “Blues for Slim’’ (with each solo a sonic adventure), and to Kenny Burrell on “Chitlins Con Carne,’’ a favorite song of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Earl’s reach deepens on a creative reworking of Duke Pearson’s “Cristo Redentor,’’ with ethereal riffs that evoke memories of Pink Floyd’s “Obscured by Clouds’’ album. And then there’s the sole acoustic track, “Blues for Bill,’’ that recalls Ry Cooder.
