Review: Max Hightower ‘Nothin’ but the TRUTH’
By Hal Horowitz
This might only be multi-instrumentalist blues rocker Max Hightower’s debut, but it appears after decades of steadfast contributions to other outfits. He was a key member of Mac Arnold & Plate Full O’ Blues, cranking out harmonica, guitar, and piano for frontman Arnold. But after a single spin of his initial solo album, you’ll wonder why he didn’t take center stage earlier.
Hightower does quadruple duty on these dozen tracks, recorded at Big Tone Studio in New Orleans, with some of that storied city’s finest musicians. He blows powerful harp, plays guitar, sings and writes the tunes. Notably, it was recorded live in the studio, “mistakes and all” as he says in the notes. The facility’s owner Big Jon Atkinson, whose equipment includes reel-to-reel tape machines, vintage ribbon mics and tube amps, also plays guitar and produced. Other than entering a time machine dialed back to the 60s, it doesn’t get any more old school.
Funk, jazz and blues combine with a phenomenal band for a rootsy jaunt through New Orleans’ most storied sound. Hightower’s voice distills Stevie Ray Vaughan, Willy DeVille, John Hammond’s snarl, the Doobie’s Tom Johnston and Dr. John’s phrasing into an organic gritty growl pushing everything into the red. Horns punctuating every performance, in particular John Beaumont’s honking tenor sax, are especially impressive. The trombone featured in the James Brown-inspired funk of “Thick Jello” brings even more personality, and a brief slice of Dixieland, to an already crackling attack.
It’s a soulful ride on a Big Easy trolley down to Bourbon Street as Hightower’s effervescent personality makes lyrics secondary. It doesn’t matter how often he repeats “I Ain’t Lyin” in the song of the same name, because when the band, led by Beaumont’s sax and Rob Davis’ piano, nails the groove, nothing else matters. No one is going to confuse “Snuggle Bug” with a Willie Dixon composition, but the band hammers their riffs with such tough energy, and Hightower’s Butterfield-styled harp work is so potent, that the track explodes from the speakers.
It feels like these guys are in the room with you, laying their parts down, winking and nodding at each other, as the frontman leads them through the shuffle boogie swamps of “Damned if I Do” and the rollicking double time “Sweet Gum Tree.” There’s a hint of Sly Stone in the frisky rhythm of “Twitchy Witcha” as Hightower spits out the song’s delightfully silly title with caffeinated, contagious energy more infectious than a winter cold.
“How about ballads or knocking down the intensity a few clicks?” you might be thinking.
Nah, nothing like that here.
Hightower keeps his musical kettle boiling, stoking the fire on every relatively brief selection, only two of which barely break four minutes. A few, like the closing instrumental jam “Assmoghraph” where Hightower unleashes his harmonica while dueling with Beaumont’s sax and creating a vibe thicker than New Orleans gumbo, don’t make it past three.
You’ll sense the interactive connection and honesty that often characterizes music from this part of the country in every note of ‘Nothin’ but the TRUTH.’ It makes the all-caps font Max Hightower applies to the titular word, one that visibly shouts its presence, entirely accurate.
Watch the trailer
Max Hightower website
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