12 best tab benoits

Product description

2012 collection containing 14 must-have tracks from the reigning Delta Roots guitarist/vocalist/songwriter.

Product description

In truth, Benoit is one of the hottest properties on the contemporary blues scene. His latest Telarc release, 'Fever for the Bayou', embodies the rich history and multicultural spirit of the Louisiana Delta-the small corner of the world that spawned some of the greatest music ever made. 2005.

Houma homeboy Tab Benoit may have snuck up on some blues fans, but his status as the best and brightest of modern Louisiana bluesmen is now too obvious for any to ignore. His swamp-saturated sound and incisive Telecaster attack, also heard on the Whiskey Store and Whiskey Store Live dueling-guitar albums with Jimmy Thackery, easily personalizes classics, such as Elmore James's "I Can't Hold Out," featured here with saxist Jimmy Carpenter. But Benoit's at his best with the bayou beat. As on 2003's The Sea Saint Sessions, Benoit spotlights the musical heritage of New Orleans by using two guest vocalists who are Crescent City icons: Mardi Gras Indian "Big Chief" Monk Boudreaux and dynastic percussionist/vocalist/composer Cyrille Neville. Boudreaux vocally parades through "Golden Crown" at a fittingly funky Mardi Gras tempo, while Neville provides two songs: the percussion-embellished "Little Girl Blues" and the history lesson "The Blues Is Here to Stay," on which he vocally duets with Benoit between some of the album's best guitar work.

Buddy Guy's "I Smell a Rat" is the album's longest track as Benoit, beginning with a tasty intro, takes his most extended guitar workout, conjuring up a late-night blues club feel in the process. Benoit also contributes three originals, including the zydeco-tinged title track, an anthem of Cajun pride that serves him well as a signature song. Also his is the swamp stomper "Night Train," the album opener. At the other end is a surprise finale, a sublime front-porch, finger-picking acoustic rendition of "My Bucket's Got a Hole in It". --Michael Point

Product description

A first-class guitarist and a singer with a repertoire that ranges from gritty versions of swamp-pop classics to original blues, Tab Benoit is about as authentic as it gets. He is also a driving force behind Voice of the Wetlands, a grass-roots organization working to save Louisiana's wetlands. Benoit's latest Telarc recording features songwriter singer Anders Osborne on guitar, along with Brady Blade on drums, Ivan Neville on keyboards and Michael Doucet of Beausoleil on fiddle.

Product description

Comprehensive 16 track collection pulled from Benoit's Five Vanguard albums. ''What I like is he captures a real blues feel in his playing and singing, and adds a bit of Louisiana hot sauce on it.'' - Billy Gibbons, ZZ Top.

What's best about Best of the Bayou Blues is Tab Benoit's spankin' electric guitar tones and lean 'n' nasty licks on numbers like the ode to Cajun living "Voodoo on the Bayou" and the stinging, vibrato-drenched epic "These Blues are All Mine." This collection of Louisiana-themed tunes plucked from Benoit's five early Vanguard albums relate to the singer-and-six-stringer's swampland raising. They also showcase his versatility--veering from his customary plugged-in blues framework to a gentle acoustic take on the Delta classic "Mother Earth" to a roaring zydeco romp through Clifton Chenier's dancehall anthem "Hot Tamale Baby." Willie Nelson guests on "Rainy Day Blues," trading vocals and blending his nylon-string guitar with Benoit's Telecaster. A brisk jaunt through Hank Williams's "Jambalaya" seems more lagniappe than main course, but when Benoit's guitar comes crying into the soulful, homesick "Nice and Warm"--which plays out like a page written in this road warrior's diary on an especially lonely night--he more than compensates for the few slights among these 15 tunes. --Ted Drozdowski

Product description

NEW Combo BLUWAVS CD and FLAC FILE

Product description

NEW Combo BLUWAVS CD and FLAC FILE

Soulful singer and guitarist Tab Benoit has never made secret his devout allegiance to the Louisiana music tradition. With The Sea Saint Sessions, Benoit, ably assisted by several Crescent City stalwarts, takes his music back to the source, setting up shop at the famed hit factory to cook up a sonic gumbo that successfully recaptures the spontaneity of the classic Sea Saint sound. Benoit's guests conjure up some of the studio's old musical magic as "Big Chief" Monk Boudreaux infuses Mardi Gras Indian spirit into "Monk's Blues," Meter man George Porter Jr. funkifies "Making the Bend," and Cyrille Neville sings on his own "Plareen Man". But it is Benoit's distinctive guitar lines--somehow both supple and hard-edged--and the impeccable elasticity of his regular rhythm section that makes the music work. Most of the material is Benoit's own, although he pays tribute to Louisiana legend Guitar Slim with a take on the classic "Sufferin' Mind" and dips into the Howlin' Wolf songbook for a rendition of "Howlin' for My Darling". --Michael Point

Product description

NEW Combo BLUWAVS CD and FLAC FILE

At first glace, the combination of blues-roots guitarists Tab Benoit and Jimmy Thackery doesn't seem like a logical one. Both are barnstorming bandleaders, and Benoit's clipped Louisiana Telecaster would appear to be at odds with Thackery's tougher Strat attack. But, as 2002's Whiskey Store collaboration proved, the duo's strengths complement, even invigorate each other. The resulting tour is captured here, in all its volatile glory. Both headliners, along with gutsy saxist Jimmy Carpenter and dynamic B3 organist Ken Faltinson, are in smashing form. As you would expect, the studio work is expanded, extended, and juiced with additional moonshine for the live experience. Benoit's more palatable vocals dominate, and his gripping version of Otis Redding's "These Arms of Mine" is the show's most emotionally stirring performance. But blues guitar lovers aren't aboard just for the poignant moments; they want pyrotechnics, which are abundantly provided as well. From the fiery double-time explosion of a nine-minute "Bayou Boogie" to the feverish swamp funk of "Bone Pickin'" and the stealthy, slow burn of the title track, this is a breathtaking picking extravaganza offering plentiful proof of each artist's speed, dexterity and collaborative discipline. --Hal Horowitz

Product description

NEW Combo BLUWAVS CD and FLAC FILE

Product description

Tab Benoit travels from the bayou on a blues trek with his 2008 album, Night Train To Nashville with Louisiana's Leroux, Kim Wilson, Waylon Thibodeaux, Jim Lauderdale and Jumpin' Johnny. In 2003, Tab formed an organization promoting awareness of coastal wetlands preservation known as "Voice of the Wetlands." Tab is featured in the current IMAX film, Hurricane on the Bayou. 11 tracks.

From the Artist

"All the guests on this record - Kim Wilson and Jimmy Hall and all the rest - make this a lot different from what I normally do on stage every night," says Tab Benoit. "These aren't guys who come to every show I play. They're all legends, and it's a real honor to have them come and play at my show. And to hear them sing my songs is a really great experience."

About the Artist

Tab Benoit is a Cajun man who's definitely got the blues. Born November 17, 1967, he grew up in Houma, Louisiana. A guitar player since his teenage years, he hung out at the Blues Box, a ramshackle music club and cultural center in nearby Baton Rouge run by guitarist Tabby Thomas. Playing guitar alongside Thomas, Raful Neal, Henry Gray and other high-profile regulars at the club, Benoit learned the blues first-hand from a faculty of living blues legends.

The nightly impromptu gigs were enough to inspire Benoit to assemble his own band - a stripped down bass-and-drums unit propelled by his solid guitar skills and leathery, Cajun-spiced vocal attack. He took his show on the road in the early `90s and hasn't stopped since.

An environmental activist as well as a stellar blues musician, Benoit has made the preservation of the endangered delta wetlands his personal crusade. He serves as president of Voice of the Wetlands, an environmental organization he co-founded in 2003, and he appeared prominently in "Hurricane on the Bayou," a 2006 documentary by filmmaker McGillivray Freeman that chronicles life in Louisiana after Katrina. "Hurricane on the Bayou" played in IMAX theaters in the U.S., Canada and Europe throughout 2007.

Product description

Tab Benoit's 2005 release Fever for Bayou peaked at #4 on the Billboard Blues chart. The blues guitarist whose fifteen-year career has embraced virtually every shade of American roots music, reconnects to his earliest and most profound influences with the help of some old friends - Jim Lauderdale, Billy Joe Shaver, Waylon Thibodeaux and Louisiana's LeRoux - on his fourth Telarc release, Brother to the Blues.

Louisiana native Tab Benoit has been slinging his swamp-R&B-blues-rock concoction for the better part of 15 years, and from the sound of this disc's opening two tunes, it seems that little besides his backing band has changed. But when the title track kicks in with sorrowful fiddle, crying pedal steel (also played by Benoit), and a lovely, lonely honky-tonk melody, it's clear the singer/guitarist has decided to visit some unique territory. Country stalwarts Jim Lauderdale and Billy Joe Shaver swing by to provide duet vocals for Benoit's versions of their songs. Even Hank Williams Sr.'s "I Heard That Lonesome Whistle" gets covered as Benoit finds the blues at the heart of the country standard. Those who are not county lovers need not be concerned that Benoit has gone all George Jones on them. He still grinds out slabs of tough bayou rocking in the crackling "So High" and the opening "Pack It Up." There's also a heartbreaking, loungey, slow blues ("Somehow") and a soul-seared cover of Sam Cooke's "Bring It on Home to Me" that shows how effective Benoit is as an interpretive vocalist. The funky Little Feat/Neville Brothers-styled "Can't Do One More Two-Step" truly brings it home on a diverse outing that stretches boundaries and adds depth to Benoit's already impressive roots. --Hal Horowitz

Product description

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the idea of blues from the bayou takes on a whole new meaning. Guitarist Tab Benoit has seen and experienced the suffering first-hand this past year as his home-state of Louisiana struggles to clean up and rebuild. Armed with gritty guitar chops, a powerful vocal attack and insightful songcraft, this self-proclaimed new kid from the old school bears witness the best way he knows how delivering a passionate and heartfelt brand of Louisiana blues that connects audiences worldwide to the plight of his beleaguered homeland.

Tab Benoit's album titles leave little doubt as to where he's from or the music he plays. Brother to the Blues, Fever for the Bayou, Wetlands, and now Power of the Pontchartrain exude the sweaty Louisiana swamp, blues, and R&B inherent in their names. But that only tells part of the story--the rest is in the grooves where Benoit's distinctive, grainy voice and tough Telecaster leads bring soul, grit, and intensity to a sound already infused with an earthy sensibility. There's more of the same on this disc, but that's no criticism. Benoit generally sticks with others' songs here, yet he unearths hidden gems. Julie Miller's "Midnight and Lonesome" is dragged into the murky swamps as a driving ballad with eerie qualities that live up to its name. Miller and husband Buddy are also credited with the righteous-yet-rugged gospel of "Shelter Me." "Somebody's Got to Go," originally by Lonnie Johnson, gets a crisp, frisky makeover, and even Buffalo Springfield's crusty "For What It's Worth" takes a swim in the muddy waters of Benoit's home state, with a little help of some altered, post-Katrina lyrics. The guitarist lets his Cajun influences fly on the bouncy rhythms of "Sac-Au-Lait Fishing," the album's only original, and shifts into pleading Otis Redding mode for the aching blues ballad "I'm Guilty of Lovin' You." The Chicago-by-way-of-the-Delta shuffle of "One Foot in the Bayou" is also an apt description of Benoit's approach. He touches on a variety of Americana styles, yet always keeps part of himself planted firmly in the wetlands of his roots. --Hal Horowitz