Blues fans will have mixed reactions to Glamour Puss's new album. New Brunswick-based GP offers the kind of rock solid sound many blues lovers pine for with fat tenor sax licks, barroom piano, funky B3 and cleverly almost-clean electric guitar tone. GP are a tight quintet who know their blues, but if they want to be remembered past their life span as a band they need to break outside tried and true blues idioms. Forays into zydeco ("Maman Don't Play no Zydeco"), R&B ("I Don't Know How to Win Your Love") and the French songs are a good start, and more of this direction on the next album will help. But songs like the title track are the trademark of the lazy blues composer it really does sound like 90 percent of the blues already out there: something that is stopping the blues audience from expanding past the die-hard fans.
(Northern Blues)Glamour Puss
Wire & Wood
BY Brent HagermanPublished Dec 1, 2003