Alvin Youngblood Hart: Start With The Soul

Alvin Youngblood Hart is most commonly categorized as a blues player, but that title seems limiting for a musician with such eclectic tastes. Sure, blues is a part of Hart's music, but it's only one piece of an increasingly intriguing puzzle. After all, his previous album Territory covered artists as diverse as Captain Beefheart and Leadbelly, with additional and authentic-sounding forays into ska and Western swing, so calling him a bluesman may be more about convenience than accuracy. Hart's third album Start With The Soul fits the blues mold a little more clearly, though it still offers considerable diversity. Legendary producer Jim Dickinson was a good choice for the mostly electric outing, as the music benefits greatly from his grasp of everything from Memphis soul to Southern rock. While Hart is the album's prime creative force and musical focus, Start With The Soul sounds like a band effort, with songs such as "Porch Monkeys' Theme" and the Hendrix-esque psychedelic exercise "Electric Eel" stretching out to jammy lengths, revealing his previously downplayed strengths as a leader. Hart also picks an inspired handful of covers, including The Sonics' "The Hustler," Chuck Berry's "Back To Memphis," Dave Dudley's "Cowboy Boots," and the Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose number "Treat Her Like A Lady." Somehow, the results don't sound as scattershot as the song selection might initially indicate, as Hart possesses the uncanny ability to make all this different music work. He's also a sneakily skilled guitarist whose subtle, snaky leads weave in and out of the music with ease, another curious facet of a man who sometimes seems torn between self-conscious attention-grabbing and a chameleon-like tendency to disappear into the music. That paradox, though, is what makes Hart so exciting: If, three albums into his career, he still hasn't deigned to define himself, that only makes the promise of album number four that much more enticing.