Colin Cooper Project - From The Vaults 2014

Until his death in 2008 from cancer, British singer and musician Colin Cooper had enjoyed a lengthy and rewarding career. Enamored of music from an early age, Cooper first taught himself harmonica before moving on to clarinet, saxophone, and guitar – multi-instrumental skills that would serve him well down the road. His first band of note was the early-1960s outfit Colin Cooper's Climax Jazz Band, but it was with the mid-60s mod band the Hipster Image, and its Alan Price-produced single "Can't Let Her Go" b/w "Make Her Mine," that Cooper got his first taste of fame. The blues remained Cooper's first love, and he would push the band back towards its blues roots throughout the late 1980s and well into the new millennium, releasing albums like 1994's Blues From The Attic and 2003's Big Blues (The Songs of Willie Dixon) to great response. During this same period, Cooper showed his loyalty to the blues by recording a number of blues and roots-rock covers in his home studio, songs that he'd crafted to perfection with impromptu performances on his steel Dobro guitar at local pubs. Although they were never performed with commercial release in mind, the best of these homespun demos have been collected under the Colin Cooper Project banner and recently released on CD as From The Vaults.

From The Vaults kicks off with Taj Mahal's "Cake Walk Into Town," the song provided a spry, up-tempo performance, Cooper's jaunty vocals approximating Mahal's original funky drawl, his lively guitar-picking providing a sparse, but engaging framework for the song. Cooper's deep voice is perfectly suited to the material, and late-period Climax Blues Band guitarist Lester Hunt adds some elegant electric guitar as a fine counterpoint to Cooper's acoustic, Piedmont blues-flavored Dobro. A reading of Robert Johnson's "Rambling On My Mind" is closer in spirit to Eric Clapton's laidback cover than to the blues legend's Delta-dirty original, an upbeat arrangement replete with finger-picked strings and a walking rhythm capturing the restless spirit of Johnson's lyrical intent nonetheless.

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