Review: Eric Gales – Tribute To LJK
Provogue Records (October 24th, 2025)
Reviewer – Mark Jackson
Eric ‘Raw dawg’ Gales has long been a Blues rock favourite of mine, as a fellow guitarist turned me onto his music years back.
On this album, a tribute to his late brother Little Jimmy King, he takes a deep blues dive!
Like a Blues rock racehorse Gales burns outta the gate on first track ‘You Shouldn’t Have Left Me‘ ..all sweet guitar tone and soulful vocals mixing traditional blues with funky, jazzy scales, metallic licks and bad ass swagger.
Next up,’Rockin’ Horse Ride’, a steamy. Jerky rocker where Gales and guitarist Christone “Kingsfish” Ingram jam, with mixylodian, pentatonic and blue note frenzy!
As RPR CO has to edit this, I’ll cut my track by track thesis and cover the major points!
Essentially, this album is a deep, heartfelt sojourn into traditional blues, but with plenty of twists and turns as Mr Gales dances over the fretboard.
His vocal style has matured nicely sounding at times like a cross between Billy Gibbons, Paul Rodgers and Robert Cray…the production is cool, smooth and precise, sounding crisp and tight with great performances from all the band.
On ‘The Blues Has Been Good To Me‘ you get all Gales scales and note driven attack which can only be acquired by years of hard work. A minor quibble would be maybe he could slow down a bit sometimes. His slow blues is equally as good as the fast runs.
My personal fave is ‘Somebody‘ a broke down acoustic swamp ditty duetting with the legendary Buddy Guy, which reeks of Palmetto and Gator bites!
Eric Gales deserves the fanbase the late great Stevie Ray Vaughn achieved. This album would be great in a cool, retro theatre like Hammersmith [and with a Grammy!] …Let’s hope Mr Bonamassa, who also cameos on this record takes him out on tour, that would be a must see. Blues Rock lives! and I do hope it’s released on vinyl!
Track Listing:
- You Shouldn’t Have Left Me
- Rockin’ Horse Ride ft. Christone “Kingsfish” Ingram
- Guitar Man
- Don’t Wanna Go Home ft. Joe Bonamassa
- Something Inside of Me
- Baby Baby
- It Takes A Whole Lotta Money ft. Joe Bonamassa & Josh Smith
- Worried Man
- Blues Been Good To Me
- Somebody ft. Buddy Guy and Roosevelt Collier
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