Review: Billy Price ‘Person of Interest’
By Jim Hynes
Award-winning soul-blues singer Billy Price garnered international fame when he debuted as the vocalist for blues guitar legend Roy Buchanan in the 1970’s. Rising to the peak of the soul music scene, he and Otis Clay received a Blues Music Award for This Time For Real for Best Soul-Blues Album.
Now with his vocal pipes as strong as ever at age 74, he appears on the Little Village label with Person of Interest produced by Grammy-winner Tony Braunagel. Several great blues musicians gathered in the Studio City, CA studio with label founder/keyboardist Jim Pugh, bassists Larry Fulcher, James “Hutch” Hutchinson, and Reggie McBride, guitarists Josh Sklar, Shane Theriot, and Joe Bonamassa, plus background vocalists Maxayn Lewis, Fred White, and Will Wheaton. The horn section was comprised of baritone saxophonist Ron Dziubla, tenorist Eric Spaulding (regular member of Price’s band) and trumpeter Mark Pender with Lenny Castro on percussion.
All thirteen songs are Price originals, most co-written with Jim Britton (keyboards), Fred Chapellier (guitar), Braunagel and Nashville writing team Jon Tiven and Sally Young. Price did most of this writing during the pandemic, so it is not a stretch to say that these are among the most personal songs he has written.
The funky opener “Inside the Box” brings punchy horns with Pender and Dziubla launching crisp solos and the background vocalists chiming the choruses. “Song I Never Heard Before” has an upbeat R&B tinge with lyrics that bemoan the ‘sameness’ in sound. This has one of Price’s most potent vocals. The foot tapping R&B of the first three tracks recedes for the standout slow burner “Mercy,” with spare accompaniment from Sklar and Pugh that blossoms into sturdy horn backing, featuring a gritty tenor solo from Spaulding. Price is at his emotive best, as if the ghost of Otis Clay is in the room. This is an older Price song often played in live shows, that never made it to an album until now.
Bassist McBride lays down a funky walking bass line in the title track, another with those hard-hitting horns as Price uses the crime-show phrase to turn his focus to a cheating lover. “Can’t Get Enough” is another of the shake-your-booty dance floor type that depicts Price’s natural affinity for Southern soul. Another standout is the mid-tempo, swaying “Change Your Mind,” a tribute to late guitar great Roy Buchanan, underpinned by Dziubla’s bari sax with Joe Bonamassa aptly taking the searing guitar solo. Price recorded with Buchanan in the ‘70s and his love for his departed friend comes through with dripping emotion.
“A Certain Something” changes it up a bit with Latin rhythms. Pugh shifts to piano while his B# colors the narrative on “The Gift,” about a painful financial relationship, with the refrain, “I’m the gift that keeps on giving but all you ever do is take.” Shane Theriot steps in with a stinging guitar solo. The shuffling “Crying at the Stoplight” turns Price’s observant eye to the woman in the next car who is clearly miserable. Following a sweeter brand of soul on “I Lose It,” the veteran Price closes with a horn flourish in “Damage Control.”
Person of Interest is among the best albums of Price’s five-decade plus career.
Billy Price website
“Person of Interest”
Leave A Comment