ALBUM REVIEW: Ronnie Baker Brooks’ Alligator Records Debut Taps His Blues DNA
Grant Britt
Posted On October 9, 2024
When Ronnie Baker Brooks says that blues is in his DNA, it’s not an idle claim or a marketing ploy. His Grammy-nominated and Blues Hall of Famer dad Lonnie schooled him in the Chicago blues tradition. Lonnie took him on the road when Ronnie was 18, teaching him enough skills to take him on as second guitarist in his touring band in 1988, after a three-year apprenticeship.
On his new album, Blues in My DNA, Brooks opens by saying, “Well, Dad, here I am.” Then he launches into the title cut, showing that he was indeed well prepared for his career as a hard core Chicago blues torchbearer.
Brooks uses his bloodline for more than just bragging rights on that track, assuring his audience that he’s not complaining, he’s just explaining:
Every day has been a blessing
In this life I live
The blues has been a lesson
To turn a bad into a positive
A bit later on, he promises to use self-accountability to reverse the curse of poverty and discrimination in his family:
I’m gonna look into the mirror
With this love from this healing
Keeping the faith with every piece I break
Of this invisible glass ceiling
Like his dad, Brooks is an explosive guitarist, coming out with a fistful of blistering riffs on the searing love letter “I’m Feeling You,” which promises Chicago-flavored, immortal fidelity.
Brooks shows off a somewhat softer side on the gritty gospel-soul cut,“ Accept My Love.” He revisits ’70s Memphis soul in the style of O.V. Wright or James Carr. And although it sounds like a plea to a former lover for a rerun, Baker says in the liners that it triggered memories of his mom, who passed last year.
Although there’s not an overall retro sound to the all-originals set list here, Brooks acknowledged that it was intentional to have all the cuts clock in at under five minutes, just as 45 rpm vinyl records used to do back in the day. It’s the equivalent of writing a three-minute novel.
Plenty of slam-bangers abound, to satisfy even the hardest-core Chi blues lovers. “I don’t make promises, I make guarantees,” Brooks says on “All True Man.” He punctuates that claim with some searing licks that sound inherited from his dad’s ’83 hit “Don’t Take Advantage of Me.”
Finally, with its down-and-dirty, belly-crawling, back-alley, late-night-blues feel, “Stuck On Stupid” will satisfy fans of B.B. King’s glorious bombast. Brooks does himself and his dad proud on these tracks for his Alligator Records debut, paying homage to his Lonnie’s legacy as well as laying the groundwork for his own.
Ronnie Baker Brooks’ Blues in My DNA is due Oct. 11 on Alligator Records.
