The Bluesmasters Featuring Cassie Taylor Review
Kickstarting the summer of 2025 is the new eponymous album by The Bluesmasters featuring Cassie Taylor. Released via Exulans DMD, the new record represents the creative collaborative group’s eighth studio release – with the blues scion Cassie Taylor leading the eleven-piece group and bringing the gospel, soul, and blues influences to the centre stage. The Bluesmasters Featuring Cassie Taylor is a live studio record showcasing fresh inspiration across ten songs written by powerhouse artists such as The Staple Singers, Ramsey Lewis, O.V. Wright, and Aretha Franklin to name a few.
Opening the set with unwavering confidence, the group revisits The Staple Singers’ call and response number “Downward Road”. A solid Chicago shuffle foundation is built upon with powerful lead and soulful backing vocals, screaming guitar licks, with fuzzed blues harmonica adding the finishing touch to this short-and-sweet energy bomb! Following the starter, we are introduced to a Blind Willie Johnson classic, “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” – blues at its finest with vocal harmonies sure to bring tears to your eyes. A hymn “Sit Down Servant,” follows, spiced up with heavily distorted lead guitar parts. Next on the menu is a rock take on the African-American spiritual “Wade in the Water”. The relentless driving rhythm pulls this piece like a locomotive on a railway. Definitely one of the stand-out tracks of the album.
The musicianship of this group is impeccable – it’s so easy to forget The Bluesmasters Featuring Cassie Taylor has actually been recorded live! The bittersweet R&B ballad “You’re Gonna Make Me Cry” is no exception to that – wonderful electric organ parts are met by a rocking groove and crowned by heartfelt singing. Ready or not, the upbeat rhythm of the 1922 hymn “If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again” will carry you away. On a similar ready-or-not note, another groovy The Staple Singers’ tune follows, aptly titled “If You’re Ready”. The Staples tribute continues with a couple more tracks: a slow blues number “I Wonder Why” weighing tonnes and bringing that killer blues harmonica back into the mix, and one of their most beloved songs “Respect Yourself” paving the way to the album’s grand finale – a somewhat bluesier and funkier take on Aretha Franklin’s “Chain of Fools”.
This self-titled album is a collection of soul-infused blues, with a sprig of gospel, delivered with rock and roll attitude. This is testament to the belief upon which this group was founded in the first place – that R&B “got soul” as obviously as it may sound; however, the best rock “got soul” too. The Bluesmasters Featuring Cassie Taylor is a fine record, created by an extremely talented bunch that, by the sounds of it, must have had great fun in the process of making it.
The Review: 7.5/10
Can’t Miss Tracks
– Downward Road
– Wade in the Water
– I Wonder Why
The Big Hit
– Wade in the Water
